


Surrender

by pettiot



Series: Dragon Age II Kinkmeme [15]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Confusion, Consent Issues, Doctor Kink, Hurt/Comfort, Kink, M/M, Multi, Sex, Size Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22733404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: At the end of his self-imposed tether, Fenris goes to Hawke and Anders and offers himself as a sex slave.
Relationships: Fenris/Anders, Hawke/Anders, Hawke/Fenris, Hawke/Fenris/Anders
Series: Dragon Age II Kinkmeme [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619464
Kudos: 1





	Surrender

'Listen to me,' Fenris said. 'I am killing myself.'

But Hawke couldn't translate.

'Tell me this is a joke. You lost a bet with Anders. Or Isabela. Anything.'

Fenris sorted through the words, lips parting, closing. He shook his head.

Anders let his attention drift across the ridiculous tableau, Hawke by the fireplace, hand covering his eyes, Fenris still kneeing by the door, barely two steps from where Bodahn had announced him and left. The lank hair dripped, more steel than silverite, a puddle between his knees, but the rain had stopped hours ago.

Staged, Anders decided. He was uncharitable; could picture Fenris ducking his head beneath a gutter's overflow right before knocking on Hawke's door, completing the picture of the haggard dog begging for a crust by the fire. The delivery of Fenris' request had certainly smacked of memorisation, no spontaneity in the dull tone. Anders was sure of it. The table was hours cleared of dinner, the sun was down. He sipped Hawke's brandy and warmed. Fenris was easily provoked, and Anders knew all his triggers.

'Hawke,' Anders said. 'Love. Ah, why not? Haven't you always wanted a second pet?'

He was a little drunk. Why not, indeed? Hawke kept very fine brandy. Anders had drunk both their generous pours in the last fraught five minutes alone.

Fenris kept looking at the floor.

'Just give him what he wants so badly.' Too bitterly for the aftertaste. Anders got up to pour again, crossing his steps towards the bureau. Nodded at Fenris, who had flinched at the sound of bottle on glass, and in doing so Anders missed the edge, spilled the liquor on his hand, hot and cold, wet and dry. 'Yes, you should have anticipated my empty cup. I'm sure Hawke will forgive you this once.'

Hawke went white with shock, two sharp steps towards Anders before he caught himself and stopped.

'Now, love, that's unfair of you. Why rage at me? I'm not the one who—'

Hawke cut him off, but spun instead to Fenris, growling. 'No. You don't get to walk in here making drama in my life for some kind of lack in yours. What do you think you're doing?'

'He can't help it,' Anders toasted the grovelling form. 'Animals can't help it.'

'Then I am an animal,' Fenris told his reflection in the marble, without inflection.

Hawke shook convulsively, as if he were the wet dog. Held out his palm, mouth bunching at the words that wanted to burst.

Anders went and stood before Fenris, moving his glass so the brandy slicked the inside surfaces with gold.

'Now, don't blame me for kicking a man when he's down.' He placed the glass on the floor between Fenris' knees, then forced a smile that Fenris avoided looking at. 'Help yourself to a drink. Warms the blood, and you look a mite chilled. If I must play the housewife, you can well believe I insist.'

Fenris shivered. Where his armour gaped from skin, Anders could see the rain had drenched him, slicked him. Heat and the smell of sour sweat rising. Hair dripping into the brandy.

Anders would have been halfway willing to put this whole evening aside as a vivid sort of dream, until Fenris leaned and sucked the brandy from his fingers.

* * *

After midnight, before dawn. As if either of them had slept. Hawke went from recumbent to vertical without pause between, dragging the quilts with him while Anders protested, feigning disturbance, if weakly; in reaching out he could feel the puddle of sweat Hawke wept into the sheets.

'But why would he think I could ever want this from him?'

'Leave it, Hawke. He's not thinking about you or he would never have come in here. He's a selfish little man.'

'Selfish.' Dully. 'How can you say that?'

'Because you've already given him more than I ever would. Killed his master. Freed him. It's almost as though he's trying to make you feel guilty for not handing him over.'

A spell wisp unfurled in the corner; Hawke glared at Anders. 'No one asks someone what for he asked. No one in their right mind wants it.'

Anders exhaled sharply.

Hawke didn't miss it. 'You think otherwise?'

'It's a great freedom, asking someone else to be responsible for your every action, to take the guilt for every one of your murders. To be responsible for your wellbeing, to make your decisions for you, let you take risks knowing that everyone will blame him instead of you, no matter what you say. Every one of Fenris' excuses died when his magister did. Small wonder he looks for a new master now.'

Hawke paused. He did not question, but his brow smoothed as if with understanding.

Anders knew that look. Fuck Fenris. Anders would break him. 'You're thinking about it.'

'You're saying he's asking for help.'

'It's not help he wants.' Flatly. 'It's a game; he becomes the centre of your life because you're spending so much time telling him how to run his. This isn't surrender, Hawke. This isn't submission. Do you want to see what he really wants?' Heart in his throat, thundering. Hawke was too much the sucker for the vulnerable, and Fenris wasn't vulnerable, Hawke had to see that.

The mouth thinned, lids creasing closed. Hawke nodded once.

Anders thought he might drown in the mattress. He struggled to stand, retying the drawstring on his breeches, which were Hawke's regardless. Barrel chest and thick thighs and too many ribs and a pelt of blonde hair from neck to heel, wings of fuzzy curls across his shoulders; a ridiculous image of himself caught in a mirror in passing. No wonder Hawke hadn't thrown Fenris out bodily after his first words. Anders' swallow knotted, caught in his throat, paranoia and anticipatory grief.

So many things he could not offer Hawke, youth, beauty, obedience. The place at the centre of his world.

The wisps followed, Anders in blue circling his head with interest, Hawke's in white and a constant distance behind his shoulder, their shadows running along the stairs as they descended. Fenris knelt where they had left him, at the dining hall's door.

Wet between his knees, shining silver as the wisps wavered. The glass untouched, where it survived Anders' first instinct to kick it and the slave across the room when Fenris suckled his fingers. The head did not lift until Anders scuffed the marble, then Fenris breathed sharply, looked up and down again.

Fenris could sleep while kneeling. The bitterness in Anders' throat softened unexpectedly.

'Get up. Shirt off.'

'Anders,' Hawke, wary.

Trusts a templar, never trusts me. 'I'm not planning to do anything to him.'

Which also came out softer than he expected.

Staggering, unsteady. Fenris put his palms on the floor to rise like an old man, when Anders had seen him flip to standing from flat on his back, effortless. He found himself offering a hand, which Fenris blinked at, dazed, then took.

He started with the gauntlets. Hawke moved to take them, then simply held them, detached morbid hands curled over his fingers.

The expected bloodstains, old and new, across the linen undershirt, the fresher stains having bled into a near unanimous brown by the dunking. Anders counted the hiccups of shock in Hawke's breath as Fenris stripped, a rusty creaking hinge. The shirt next, which was an awkward affair, laces at the throat undone, then the cuffs pinched between thumb and forefinger, arms retreating inside the sleeves, before Fenris finally bent to let it fall over his head, gasping in pain.

'I warned you not to let them go after your kidneys again.'

'I am not the one making the rules,' Fenris said, voice of cracking ice.

Hawke placed the gauntlets on the floor, gently; walked a slow circle. Anders had seen what he saw too many times over the last few months, since Danarius had died with his throat in Fenris' hands. Bootprints over critical areas. Lashes parting skin. Bruises: sediment yellow, dusted blue. Not that Fenris' skin had ever been sacrosanct. A warrior was always patterned by his life, lyrium notwithstanding. Fenris scarred badly atop that, even magicked healing leaving marks knotted by raised keloid, lighter or darker than the surrounding skin, old acne across the shoulders. Anders' palms insisted on remembering the texture every time he had touched the elf, inadvertent, begrudged, or otherwise.

'Who did this?' Hawke's hands hovered over the shoulders.

Fenris said, 'No one important. As I have learned.'

Harshly. 'You let them live?'

'He asked for it,' Anders said. 'Isn't that right? Since your lovely old man died, isn't it, Fenris? Sidling into my clinic, wasting my time with your personal crisis to keep you from sepsis, just to wander back into the path of a shitstained flogger. How many masters did you try before crawling here? Tell him how many.' To Hawke, over Fenris' shoulder, 'Why would he strike back when he asked for it? This is what he's asking from you!'

'No.' The eyes flashed, Fenris' weight forward, aggressive. Then slumping suddenly. ‘Only if. I would.’ A breath. ‘I would trust Hawke to make the right rules for me. A slave obeys.’

'Oh, Maker,' Hawke said. 'Fenris, I don't want to do this.'

'I would do it, you manipulative little shit. But it wouldn't be for your benefit.'

Anders stared until Fenris lowered his eyes. It was too easy. The wrongness jarred like an interrupted spell.

'That is as it should be,' Fenris said. As if off the same script he had used earlier. 'I am selfish. I make many mistakes. If Hawke wishes to allow you the right, that is his right.'

An inchoate sound out of Hawke's mouth, as he turned to face away out of desperation. 'There's bedding in a linen closet below the stair, around the back to the servants' room. Get sufficient for yourself.'

'No! Hawke, no, don't let him—'

'Back off, Anders.'

Anders stared at his hands, wrapped around Fenris' shoulders as if ready to shove him. Felt the old scabs crack under his grip, felt those strong bones cresting against his palms. Skin on fire, whatever the cold.

'I mean it. Let him go.' Hawke's big hand wrapping around his wrist, tight. The warning in the voice. If Anders had seen even a trace of triumph in Fenris' eyes—

Relief. Hopeless, pathetic relief.

‘Hawke,’ Fenris said, slumping against Anders’ hands. ‘You have my gratitude. I am yours.’

Anders stepped away sharply.

‘You’ll regret this,’ unsteadily. Anders thought he might be sick. ‘Both of you.’

‘We’ll talk about it in the morning,’ Hawke said.

* * *

When midmorning rolled by without sight or sound of Fenris, Anders found himself reading the same page over and again, while Hawke moved through the household accounts, sparing with the ink until the scratch of his quill made Anders want to get up and snap it. Hawke had asked for third serving of breakfast, which dried over time despite the humidity, eventually collected without a word on Bodahn's part. The dwarf's mouth twisted with shared embarrassment when Anders caught his eye.

Anders waited until Bodahn was out of earshot. 'I suppose this is how the Champion gets his thrills these quiet days, having tamed the rebel apostate away from his incendiary ways, having affected his careful coup, now scandalising the servants with slaves.'

Hawke cleaned his quill and placed it down, gently. He stood.

'One day, and already he's got you trained into running after him.'

'Not now, Anders.'

'Then when?' He let his voice tear open. Why bother hiding the hurt? He wasn't proud. 'When he expects you to stand by him every moment of the day, instructing him to inhale, exhale, inhale—'

Anders threw the book across the room after Hawke was safely gone, then curled in the chair and waited. Knocking his knuckles against his forehead, just hard enough to reprimand. No one answered.

Waited, until the impossible emotion faded to something more manageable. Thinking Hawke would betray him was an old paranoid, and with Fenris of everyone. Hawke kept him safe through the worst, fought a war in the Fade against what Justice had become. Freed him, brought him through, for such love. Hawke wouldn't throw that sacrifice away just for Fenris. He couldn't.

But Hawke gambled his life for Isabela, too. Fought away Marathari's own possession, the seed of that battle teaching them skills to later free Anders. The uncertainty churned. Where did Anders rank, on Hawke's broad scale of caring? He chewed his thumbnail.

Unanswerable, at least on his own.

Anders finally found them in the bathroom, Hawke helping a shaking Fenris into the tub. Hawke sat on a stool beside, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow and back to the door. Stripped bare this time of his underthings, Fenris did not flinch at sight of Anders but sank into the water too fast, as if to hide himself, gasping. Anders was too used to bruises and injuries to stare because of that: the image clinging behind his eyelids instead was the startlingly generous pubic hair, a pure and silky blackness. He had never seen Fenris completely naked before.

Hawke did not turn. Hawke continued, as if without interruption, 'Twice a day. When we're in the house, at least. Even if the water's gone cold. Can you do that for me?'

If Fenris had panicked briefly when Anders came in, it was already retreating. 'Yes, Hawke.'

'Don't let your room get dirty, or messy. You're not to become a burden on Bodahn. Make your own bed, wash your own linens, clean your own armour and sword. If you need repairs let me know, I'll pay to get them done. Eat only at mealtimes — and make sure that's at least once a day, Fenris? You're too picky.'

The gaze turned distant. 'Yes, Hawke.'

'No pissing in the garden or the potplants. The privy's out the back. Empty your own chamberpot every morning, don't let it sit until it overflows, I've seen the way you treated your other pace. Make your own bed. Ask Bodahn if you don't know how to do anything, the state you let that room get into, I half assume you never had the privilege of anyone showing you how to clean or how not to make a mess. Not an ounce of common sense. I bet Danarius never let you lift a finger to do anything except kill for him.' Bitterly, 'You don't use swords to sweep out the corners, do you.'

'No, Hawke, you do not.'

'Well, you're not a sword, you're a person, and you can apply that intelligence of yours to learning how to sweep your own damned corners. And when you ask Bodahn you do it politely and with humbleness, and try not to add more work to his day with your incompetence. Don't spit on my floor, ever. Bloody Tevinters and their spitting.'

'Yes, Hawke.'

'Is that enough humiliation for now? Enough listing of minutia, of treating you like an imbecile? I wouldn't even talk this way to Sandal. Look how far you've pushed me. Shall I ask you to repeat everything back to me like an errant child, just to compound your shame?'

'Clean my room,' Fenris said, in the same monotone. 'Use the privy, not the potplants. Eat at least once a day. Make the bed. Wash my sheets. Bathe twice daily whenever possible. Keep my arms and armour well.'

'Don't let anyone touch you like this again,' Hawke said, angrily. The wet cloth passed over Fenris' shoulders harshly. Anders saw the moment when Fenris braced as if to fight, then gave himself up to the force, the scabs no doubt rubbed to bleeding; mouth opening soundlessly as his lids fluttered.

Hawke said, 'I saw you pissing blood this morning. Anders, can you—'

'Heal him? Of course. It'll hurt, though, bruised organs always do.'

Fenris struggled to focus, pushing away whatever had let him answer Hawke in that uncanny monotone. He looked at Anders, unreadable. He was rocked by each scrub of hand, as resigned as a dog.

'Hawke, I don't want him to heal me.'

'I said he will. Aren't you supposed to submit?'

'No,' Fenris said. His throat flexing around the swallow, eyes closing. 'I never— I am not good at submission. I obey.'

'Is that how you got all those marks,' Anders said. 'A punishment, for not giving in?'

'No, I— It was. I. Needed.' A louder swallow. Anders was aghast at the shine in those eyes. Maker, don't let him cry!

'Answer only when you want to,' Hawke said. Gently.

The profound relief when Fenris looked at Hawke made Anders ashamed again. Fenris rubbed wet hands over his face, shuddered, sighed into his palms. He leaned into the steady grip on his shoulders. When his hands lowered, his eyes were distant again.

'You'll let Anders heal you after I'm finished with you,' Hawke said.

The safe, steady monotone. 'Yes, Hawke.'

* * *

As the days passed, encounters grew rare. Anders almost forgot Fenris was in the house, only to startle himself sometimes with the revelation. It took some calculation for Anders to find Fenris out of his room. His hair was wet from the bath, the smell of soap rising from warm skin.

Fenris did not look surprised to be cornered.

'Where are you going?'

'The kitchen, for my meal.'

'Late for a meal, the rest of us have eaten.'

Fenris dipped his chin. 'Bodahn puts some aside for me. It is less bother for me to eat late, when he is not busy.'

And Fenris slept until well past midday, Anders knew. 'Collect a plate and meet us in the greatroom instead.'

There was no hesitation, no uncertainty. 'Yes, Anders.'

His name on Fenris' lips made him feel strange.

In the greatroom, Hawke sat with perfect posture in the armchair closest to the fire, both sidetables laden with the neverending pile of missives, from Starkhaven, Tantervale, from Cullen or Aveline, reading from one side, making notes, dispensing further letters from his laptable, discarding some angrily. Since Hawke had provoked, less than subtly, the templar coup against Meredith, Anders had become accustomed to the crease between his eyes, the tendency to angry muttering.

Anders was equally used to never asking what had enraged Hawke this time, lest Hawke bundle the papers together and leave. His life had been permitted, but confidences were seemingly not. It hurt. Their relationship before had been built on shared secrets.

Consequences, Hawke said, as if it was an excuse. For actions never undertaken, Anders challenged, but Hawke hadn't liked that. Never asking for forgiveness, because Hawke didn't do that; Hawke asked for understanding, or failing that, for acceptance. And time. Just give it time, Anders.

'Fenris will be joining us tonight.'

Hawke lowered the letter immediately. 'What have you done?'

'Settle down. Only asked him to join us. I'm irritated with him ghosting around the house like someone's poor cousin. If you're insistent on him being here,' Anders let the mocking soar, 'for sanctuary, then he at least owes us the pleasure of his company. Don't you think?'

'Doesn't owe us anything.' An almost uncertain mutter, Anders noted, surprised. Hawke smoothed the paper against his laptable, unseeing.

'Well. Whatever. You might want to put aside your shackles of pseudo government, this is a momentous occasion. If we try hard enough, we might even have a civil conversation.'

Hawke laughed a little, softening. Anders — warmed. Admit it. He warmed, then flushed into it further, shamed by such a reaction to what felt like a success. He had pleased his lord, hurrah! Void take him.

'And what is this miraculously civil conversation to be about?' Still light, humourous.

Anders' first urge was to quip, stifled ruthlessly. 'I'll think of something.' So curtly, a clear conversation closer. Anders tried not to see the hurt in Hawke's eyes.

Hawke went back to his papers.

Fenris didn't take long. He tried his best to be unobtrusive on entry, plate held between both hands, eyes on the floor, using the side entrance direct from the kitchens instead of the main. Two steps into the room, six steps to the side of the door — to be clear of the swing, Anders thought — then Fenris dropped to a crouch and started to eat with his hands, quickly, silently.

Papers rustled. Hawke hadn't noticed. Anders looked between them, Fenris breaking his bread into bits before licking the crumbs from his fingers.

That mouth. That tongue. Even the first night, near a fortnight ago now Fenris came here with his absurd proposition, dehydrated, lips cracked when they closed around Anders' brandy-wet fingers, the action coming from Fenris had shocked Anders to an instant erection. Not an arousal, not in the way Anders remembered arousal to be from before Justice, lazy and longing, the same sort of arousal that Hawke elicited in him. More like battlelust, pulse leaping from normal to such a hard pace, adrenaline and exertion, from fear, the erection an inevitable consquence of racing blood. It had lingered near all night, too, through the lack of conversation with Hawke afterwards, and their attempt to sleep tossing in bed together, afraid of the elf in the dining room refusing to rise from his knees, refusing to meet their eyes.

But maybe even battlelust was arousal, and one of a kind Anders didn't want to admit. The tightness in the belly was close enough to anger to justify the definition. Fenris licked his own fingers again, the webbing between knuckles where juice had spilled, like a peasant, until the plate almost clean. The whole time Anders couldn't look away. He pressed the heel of his palm over his groin, the pressure adding - something. His breath came hard.

Yes, anger. Rage that this was still in their house, permitted by Hawke, who must be expecting Anders to compete for his attentions now. But if Hawke thought Anders would ever grovel like Fenris had — Maker, he was so angry. As if they were a harem of tamed beasts, once wild now called to heel, waiting for Hawke's approval. Anders looked over at Hawke again. Lounging in his house robe, ensconced like an Orlesian lord. Anders read Orlesian smut a time or two, before the fruity language and purpling man meat defeated him. He knew what happened in harems when the lords weren't home to play, and it wasn't all peach eating.

Anders beckoned Fenris silently, who set aside the plate and approached, bare feet quiet, eyes focused on Anders' chin.

A seemingly simple matter to unlace his own trousers, shirt hem out of the way, parting his coat to frame the upstanding. Fenris went to his knees without pause, almost — eagerly, Anders would have said, if it wasn't so incongruous, Fenris, and eager. Anders tried hard not to think of how long Fenris had knelt that first night, waiting for Hawke to accept his offer. How easily Fenris balanced crouched on his heels, for the duration of time it took to eat his dinner, as if the posture was comfortable, or at least customary.

Anders spread his knees. He was still touching Fenris too much, the broad shoulders brushing the insides of his thighs. His mind was frantic with small details. The sound when Fenris opened his mouth wide and went down, only warm breath, not touching, not yet. His lips were shining wet. Anders watched his shaft disappear. Into Fenris. The top of his skull felt like it was coming off, the tight unnatural feeling of a dream.

Fenris closed his mouth near to the base, sucked hard as he drew up and back, just to the head, then down again. A pace close to brutality. Anders could feel the ridges on the roof of Fenris' mouth, the softness of his throat. Teeth, too much teeth. Maybe in Tevinter they knocked the teeth out of their sex slaves. Maybe in Orlais they trained their elves better. He wondered if Fenris would kill him if he asked.

Scattering paper, and an exclamation. Anders narrowed out everything except for the head bobbing between his thighs. So Hawke was noticing them now. The opposite of embarrassment.

'Fenris,' Hawke said. Almost a squeak.

Anders wanted to laugh. Except Fenris stopped and withdrew, that blessed wet warmth gone, turning to face Hawke. Blindly, Anders saw, because there was wetness on Fenris' cheeks, lashes starred against the cheeks. Such long lashes. Fenris' fine crooked brows drew together, as if pained.

'— please, Hawke.'

Rough. So rough. And please Hawke what? Anders clenched his hands around the armrests, unwilling to spoil the residual sensation around his cock with a base wank.

Hawke's voice broke when he tried to speak again.

'A-Anders rarely likes it fast. Slowly, gentle. Can you— Can you take him in your throat? I've never been— I think he might like that.'

Anders wondered if Fenris' jaw was dropping, too. No, of course not. Opening wider, in calm obedience.

Perversely, the returning warmth made Anders shiver. Fenris kept going down this time, not back, hands tucked at the small of his own spine and balanced on his toes, rocking so his weight drove him forward. Anders heard when Fenris hit the point of discomfort, the muffled grunt, flex of throat. Then Fenris was sliding forward, taking him deeper. Anders shuddered. Gasped when he felt the throat open, as Fenris groaned, pulled him in. Swallowed.

What was he doing, trying to stifle himself? Hawke watched them, knotted into himself almost like a child in that chair, eyes wide, cheeks and lips flushed. Through the blur of his own disbelieving arousal, Anders saw Hawke lick his lips. Shift, uneasily, to spread his legs wider. Anders knew that motion; Hawke was hard, watching them.

Anders sounded, felt it burble out of him, as Fenris did not move or thrust or do anything except hold the length of Anders' dick down his throat, which twitched and convulsed around him. Fenris stayed like that so long it became impossible. Anders heard Fenris whining, quietly, Anders almost disbelieved, felt his hands lift, stroke and sort that tangle of hair. As if to soothe. What was he doing? Stroking Fenris' head. That wasn't what he wanted to do. He wanted to touch the outside of that tattooed throat, and feel it stretch, working so hard around him. He stroked Fenris' hair.

'Can you— can you breathe?' Hawke, quietly.

The throat flexed, which made Anders whimper.

'Come off him,' Hawke said steadily. 'Breathe. Then swallow him and stay there until you need to breathe again. Can you do that on your own?'

Fenris pulled back, eyes still closed. He shook off Anders' hands. Two unsteady breaths, then two long, slow ones. He didn't bother closing his mouth in between, which Anders found obscene and fascinating. The bottom teeth were crooked. Fenris went down again.

'Maker, Hawke!' Why was he calling Hawke's name, when it was Fenris' throat around him? This time, when Anders tried to stroke Fenris' hair, the hands came up and took his own and returned them firmly to the armrests.

Inexorable. Four, five more times, then Anders lost count. It was torturous, both magnificent and nowhere near enough. By the time he neared orgasm, Fenris was shaking from the insufficient air, the sheer strain. His spit slicked Anders' pubic hair to his belly, the same wet coolness puddled under his balls. He had to thrust to come, or maybe he was coming because he was thrusting. The throat just— opened around him, accepted, as if stretched out and accustomed to him, even in short, convulsive jerks. Anders disbelieved the strangled sound which came out of him when he came. Into Fenris. The sound which came out of Fenris when he did.

By the time Anders could open his eyes again, Fenris shifted position to kneel in front of Hawke, who was standing close, mostly naked — and when had that happened? That pale, smooth chest mottled with heat, nipples tight and small and angry looking, the familiar stink of Hawke's lust heavy in the air. A few abrupt thrusts into Fenris' mouth, then Hawke looked at Anders, closed his eyes, came too, eyebrows arching as if beseeching someone, a silent plea.

Then it was suddenly ridiculous, Anders sagging in his chair, Hawke hugging himself, Fenris hunched, rocking back and forth. Panting desperately, faster than a dog. He would make himself faint like that. Anders imagined the lightheadedness Fenris must be feeling, the disconnection. Before he could say anything, Fenris' breath caught, stopped a long moment, then resumed again, slow and steady.

Anders was used to Hawke's smell, his own. He became aware of a ghost of something foreign in the room, disconcerting; unfamiliar, but entirely too familiar. The poisoned lyrium tang of Fenris' sweat, if so much stronger—

Fenris' arousal, he realised. Fenris' arousal. Anders stood, went to where the elf hunched, pushing him to his back. A moment of resistance against his palm, then Fenris rolled to bare his belly — chose to roll, exposing the damp and clinging crotch of his house linens. Because Fenris was no good at submission, but was always obedient, Anders remembered.

'You got off on that! What is wrong with you? What—'

Hawke stepped between. Anders shoved him.

Hawke's eyes flashed. 'You got off on it, too.'

'That was different! A dead stick would have sprouted leaves subject to — to that.'

A weary sound came from Fenris, who was standing, slowly. A chuckle.

'Don't you gloat, you— You cocksucker.'

'He did ask for this, don't mock him for it. You were the one who started this tonight, Anders, I would never have touched him. I tried so hard not to touch him because I thought you would hate me for it. Now you go and—' Hawke exhaled, hard and shaking. 'Some conversationalist you are. Did you plan this? Are you planning on holding this against me too?'

Hawke's brow creased heavily, a deep, underlying confusion within. And it was Anders fault as much as Fenris'. Almost a decade with a spirit in his head, clarifying logical actions to the point of insanity, now Anders was on the other side of that. A tangle of instinct, not knowing his own mind. If he had planned this, he certainly hadn't anticipated an outcome.

'I don't know.'

'You don't know.' Scathing. Almost the same scathing Hawke had used on discovering the purposes of sela petrae and drakestone. Anders recoiled.

'Please, Hawke.' From Fenris, eyes downcast again. Hands cupped, false modesty, over the mess in his trousers. Anders wanted to groan. 'I would rather not be ignored again. If that is too presumptuous of me, then.' A hiccup, as if he had forgotten how to breathe in all of that. 'Then punish me.'

'And if he wants to punish you by ignoring you?'

Fenris flinched. Oh, and it had to be feigned, Anders thought angrily.

'Please, Hawke.'

Hawke looked from one to the other and closed his eyes, tightly.

'We might as well go to bed.' Hawke held out a warning hand to Anders. 'Yes, together. Fenris, any time you want privacy, or— or a break. You know where your own room is. You go to your room, or you say you want to go to your room, and I — we'll leave you be. The rest of the time, then you're. You're — as you are.'

'Yes, Hawke.'

The calm did not sound dull this time.

'And me,' Anders heard himself saying, as if from a distance. 'Where's my room, Hawke? Where's my peace in this gilded if suddenly overcrowded cage? What do I get to say when I want it all to stop?'

Anders stared long after Hawke had turned, left the room. He only came aware of Fenris still behind him when he spoke.

'I will follow you. It is less polite to show you my back unless you have indicated a use for it.'

The calm, Anders thought, sounded almost enviable. Almost Tranquil. He grabbed and turned Fenris' chin upwards. Still slick where he had not wiped himself. Fenris looked — softened, lips swollen, a lax smoothness to his expression.

Fenris looked high.

'Go on. Gloat now, if you like. You've won his bed.'

'I won nothing, Hawke has granted it, and I am grateful.' Fenris would not meet his eyes.

'Is that supposed to tell me that I should be grateful, too, to share his bed?'

A headshake, uncertain. 'I thought— it is not an easy thing, to know I. Am. This thing. I thought I had disgusted him, and that he would tolerate me only and never speak to me again. I am also grateful. To you.'

The last came out of Fenris with some difficulty. Anders saw the peace threatened for a moment, a crack beneath the facade.

He wanted to be angry, to let that righteous flame keep burning. But in Hawke's absence, his eyes kept sliding to the corner of Fenris' mouth, where some white had caught. From Hawke, it had to be. Anders had come so deep down that throat—

'Come on. At least there's enough room. One benefit of taking an Orlesian nobleman's bed, the orgies.'

'Hawke is not Orlesian.'

'His prick seems to think he is.'

That sound from Fenris again, which Anders decided had to be a chuckle retired so long it had forgotten how to sound.

* * *

Anders drew the bedcurtains before he crawled inside, thinking it might well be the only thing to stop them scaring Bodahn's beard off him in the morning. Still reeling, he found it difficult to sleep in that stifling velvet cave, Hawke closer than usual, and from his other side Anders swore he could hear Fenris breathing.

The usual warm and pleasant smells from their two breakfast trays woke Anders shortly after Hawke, who was standing hands on hips, curtains pulled back, with a warm greeting smile.

'You'll have to let Bodahn know to bring in three trays.'

Anders was trying to sort out why and how there could still be someone in the bed if he was looking and smiling at Hawke. Realisation - remembrance - sharpened into unhappiness. 'You let him know. You're the master, you deal with the parsimonious looks and resultant gossip.'

Exasperation. 'Dwarves are more fluid about sharing than you seem to think.'

'Maybe when it comes to having babies, and I'm mostly certain Fenris can't do that for you. The three of us lying side by side is nothing more than a tribute to sexual decadence.'

The exasperation shifted to an emotion Anders couldn't read. 'Such a terrible thing, decadence?'

Hawke's eyes roved. Over both of them, Anders realised, his own shirt left off for the added heat of the extra body in the bed, and Fenris comatose on his face. Acres of bronze and tattooed back. Even the battlescars were fascinating. Sharp blades of shoulders and curving spine, cresting the skin like almost like fins; Fenris' choice of reduced ration had inflicted a serious disrespect to that body, only barely beginning to thicken again under Hawke's instruction to eat.

The long and ugly undergarments bunched between the thighs were an even worse disrespect. Isabela would have howled and covered her eyes.

He was sharing a bed with Fenris.

By the time Anders recovered enough from the shock to speak, Hawke had settled to eat, perched on the corner of the bed with his uncovered tray.

'I'm sure he and his cheap washables would have an opinion on the terribleness of decadence.'

'Of three to a bed?' Hawke spoke through a full mouth.

'In a situation when one of the three is a slave, certainly. At least, he would if he wasn't,' Anders handwaved through the lack of clarity. 'Whatever this is.'

The crunch stopped. Started again, slowly. 'Please stop trying to provoke him. He's looking for acceptance.'

'What? Why? I've spent almost a decade enjoying our arguments about civil liberty and rights to personhood, only for him to walk in here and render everything he's ever said void by his own actions, as if his slavery is essential to who he is. You can't tell me this is right.'

'Enjoying?' Hawke shook his head'He asked for it, we took him on, he can end it any time he wants to. He wants this.'

'We took him on, did we? Right.'

Anders watched Hawke's throat flex, bob, the pulse strong and firm. A tiny headshake, no words. All flickering signs of anger, restrained.

'Go on,' Anders sneered. 'Yell at me for disagreeing with you again. Save all your concern for him.'

Hawke stood, tray only half consumed. 'Wake him up.'

When the elf didn't respond to his name, Anders shoved the tattooed shoulder, but between he and Hawke, it took some coaxing, poking, tickling of feet and underarms, slapping of buttocks, goosing, and fingers in ears before Fenris made any more than a disgruntled sound, squinting at them blearily. Huge elven eyes, the pupils blown then sharply contracting, like a cat. Fenris dropped his gaze.

Anders felt odd, that he expected it.

'Eat,' Hawke held out a piece of sausage between his fingers.

'Nn. Not hungry—'

'Not negotiable,' Hawke said. 'Eat it all.'

Fenris. Eating out of Hawke's hand. And what would have happened if Fenris had been less conducive to being woken by pinching, shaking, poking, slapping, if the lyrium had lit up, if Fenris had struck half asleep with a deadliness hardly tamed, whatever Hawke pretended. Yet most of what remained on Hawke's plate disappeared that way, even the mash cupped in Hawke's palm, boiled egg split into pieces. Half asleep, Fenris seemed to forget to chew until Hawke prodded him again, sometimes rubbing the lyrium scars along the throat, gentle, as if to coax a swallow.

'Here,' unexpectedly, the tray was lifted and placed over Anders' lap. Before Anders could voice anything, Hawke leaned over and kissed him deeply.

When had been the last time they even—

Anders arched into it, his arms around Hawke's neck. Stay, oh, Maker, he wanted Hawke to stay, to make this make sense, and it all came out as too much inarticulate noise and desperation, his groin warming despite his will, his tongue chasing bits of breakfast, which made Hawke chuckle against his lips, gifting little kisses even as he untangled himself and moved away.

'Finish him off. I'll grab a pastry downstairs before I leave.'

Anders watched him leave. Disconcerting, to sigh and lie back, only to find Fenris on his side watching Anders in turn.

Anders threw a grape at his face, which Fenris — closed his eyes and let rebound, then lipped up and ate. Swallowed.

Hard to resist that performance.

Fenris kept eating what was offered, from sucking the last crumbs of cheese out from the pinch of Anders' forefinger and thumb to a whole folded sloppy pancake, sad and cold. His teeth scraped; he opened in expectation and let Anders push the food into his mouth quite far. His lips were dry, cracked, but he also let Anders rub butter all around them, messily, eyes lidded, then licked it off as soon as Anders stopped. The texture of his tongue was unexpectedly defined, not the general wetness of Hawke's mouth, rougher, drier.

Anders didn't think Fenris had been suckling at Hawke's fingers like this; feeding had seemed far more pragmatic when watching. Despite himself, his groin, warmed by Hawke's kiss, tightened further. And Fenris pressed his rough little tongue broad and flat against Anders' palm to clean the last of the grease, looking up at him with an unexpected heat.

The plate was empty. Fenris rose abruptly, moved the tray away, pulled apart the flaps of Anders' breeches, and folded himself face first into Anders' lap. Two swipes of his tongue, then he swallowed Anders' cock and swallowed, again, gave constant suck with such speed and force and surety Anders cried out in surprise and came explosively, after which Fenris licked him clean, wiped his mouth on his wrist, then settled on his side again, a third pillow hooked and held over his head with a bronzed and muscular arm.

Anders lay still, heart racing. He felt empty. Even the hunger was gone, the smell of his own untouched breakfast irrelevant, morning urge to piss subverted into something else.

'Why did you do that? Did you want to do that?'

Sleepily, muffled inside that sandwich of pillow. 'Hawke said to finish you off.'

'He was talking to me, not you. To finish,' choked. 'Feeding you. Because he can't even trust you to eat for yourself.'

'He wanted me to pleasure you, I assume to remind me of why I am in his bed, to serve his wants. He wants you. If you stay here, I will suck you to completion again. I am,' a yawn, bitten short, 'very grateful.'

Anders' fingers tingled. His palm. Remembering lips, the warm tongue. Not his cock, not his balls, his fingers remembered it. With an obscene amount of detail.

Anders got out of bed, knees weak. It would have been too easy to stay.

* * *

Over a year ago Hawke had lured the new Knight Commander into closeted discussion regarding the disgruntlment in his household, the source particularly being one bored apostate, the end result being a permission for Anders to have his herb garden.

Anders was not exactly content with that concession, not when he realised that senior enchanters were scheduled to come at random to inspect his notes for anything subversive or off topic. But that purpose — and his resentment — shifted as even Kirkwall's Circle realised what they were reading. Anders had been surprised, then gratified by the respectful comments, the acknowledgement. Even Solivitus had visited to Anders' delight; the flower-picking missions for the herbalist featured strongly in Anders' good memories of his time in Kirkwall. And if the Circle was sending him Solivitus, it must mean his more speculative hypotheses were credible. There was talk of documented trials, of production, and process.

The odd, narrow room claimed for his workshop bounded off the servants' quarters. Even this worst of spaces in Hawke's mansion was better lit than Darktown, better ventilated, and had direct access to the estate's internal gardens. For a time the place made him happy.

Who had let it slip? Sadness, Bodahn's boy said. Magic juices all gone. The templars confiscated and destroyed anything which came out of his hands, even rendering the flasks to slag. The Circle's support meant nothing. Were they letting Solivitus take the credit for risks he was taking, testing blends on himself? So what was the point? Anders burned his journals to deny them everything, refused to see anyone from the Circle again.

Hawke bore the brunt when the anger had nowhere else to go. Hawke always bore the brunt. If Hawke never asked for forgiveness, then let Anders never feel guilty. Not even for being chased out of his bed by Fenris, threatening to use his mouth on him indefinitely.

Sunlight and dust, abandonment. Anders didn't know why he had come here. The drying bundles from months ago were mouldy now, what was visible of the garden a tangle dominated by spindleweed. He should raze it with a small spark. Grow food instead. Bodahn, Hawke, Sandal, the aging Mantzou's inexplicable love of carrots. Now Fenris. Five to eat a garden's worth of food, and no templars to bother him about his non-magical project. Not wheat. What else did people grow in small gardens? He should know this. Figs. If he could give a fig.

The frustration mounted, his thoughts leaping. No, forget the garden. He could clear the slurry out of the pond and grow fish. Breed fish? How did fish even fornicate? He would get Fenris to eat it no matter what faces he made. Raw and still twitching, off the floor, with his hands bound behind his back and arse in the air.

No. Not that.

With a single rigid finger, Anders pushed an empty flask along the benchtop until it fell.

Smashing. Even that made him think of Fenris. All it needed was the reek.

It took a long time to gather every old flask from the shelves, to arrange them within arms' reach on the central bench. He had been meticulous about them, once.

By the time Bodahn dared to intrude, crunching gingerly through the accumulated shards of glass against one wall, the bench was nearly bare again. Glass was expensive, a small fortune littering the floor. Hawke could afford it.

'Lunch is ready, if you'd like to join us, messere?'

'Is Fenris awake yet?' Not what Anders intended to ask.

Bodahn tugged his beard braids. 'Uh. Yes, I believe about ten minutes ago.'

'Why does he sleep so much? To hide from us? It's not natural.'

'I wouldn't presume to guess, messere.'

'I suppose not. Good servants limit their presumptions.' Yes, because Bodahn would at least ask before sucking off his master. Anders felt the flask in his hand crack, released it immediately before he cut his hand. What was wrong with him? 'Send him down here, I want to see him. Dressed. ' And why specify clothing, if he didn't want to ignite the dwarf's suspicions further than Fenris being found in Hawke's room? 'Bring me a broom. Uh. Please.'

The mouldy herbs crumpled together easily enough, spores puffing into the air while Anders held his breath until he could shove them into the custom brazier entire. Commissioned by Hawke, it had a sealed flue, which in combination with the brief, high heat of Anders' magic kept any overflow of contaminated smoke to a minimum. It seemed immediately urgent to empty the workshop of detritus, the months of sheer dilapidation a suitable target for Anders' disgust. In parallel, so good to feel his magic come easily on command, controllable, knowable. Magic behaved in ways that made sense. Even this small amount the templars let him use without storming the mansion felt like stretching a stiff muscle, aching to stretch more.

Repetitive motion and focus in destruction. Anders only came aware of Fenris when the tinkle of glass made him whirl.

'I hadn't meant — I wanted to see you, I didn't mean for you to char for me.'

Fenris looked like he was about to answer, his grip on the broom handle strangely wrong. He bent back to pushing glass around. It was just pushing glass around, too, as if he had no idea of the object of sweeping.

'No, stop. Come here, I wanted to check something. I wanted you. To check you.'

Awkwardly, Fenris propped the broom against the wall, where it immediately began to slide. He lifted himself to sit on the indicated bench, hands between his knees, eyes on his hands. Resistance, as Anders tried to tilt the head back, a gasp, jerking away when Anders tried to thumb his eyelids.

'I'm checking you out. Sleeping so much is not right. You might have something.'

'I am well.'

'Perhaps syphilis. Or the sailors' disease. How many other masters had you before you crawled to Hawke?'

'Three. Though I was shared—'

A certain chill in the response. Anders had not expected him to answer at all. 'How many?' He was fascinated. Morbid. Probably shouldn't be.

'I could not count. Once, the mas— one kept a tally. I—' The chin was almost on the chest.

Anders wanted to press. He really, really wanted to. Said instead, 'Only three. Not including Danarius, I take it?' A little jerk at the name, but not a flinch. 'Not very persistent of you.'

'It was obvious they were insufficient.'

'Astounding. You really are a selfish little shit.'

The shoulders rolled.

'Why don't you like me healing you? I've done it often enough on the field. I do recall it was often received with welcome.'

'Field healing is from a distance, or necessary for function. This is intimate.'

The word folded around acres of meaning. Anders imagined — perhaps healers in Tevinter, involved in Fenris' recovery after receiving the markings. Interested in Fenris' intimate reactions. It would be hard to resist abusing that sort of physical right over another's body without morality as a guide. They would have asked Danarius for permission before fondling Fenris. Maybe Fenris had even stood there, neck gone soft with shame, cringing to let himself be handled for the amusement of a gathering of old men.

Or maybe not. Standing proud, head thrown back and the mane of hair clear of his eyes, pleased to be so desirable even magisters clawed over each other and begged his master to touch him. The slave finding a dark little thrill in being brought to his pleasures by magisters. The mages, serving his sexual needs.

Anders liked the picture of Fenris hangdog more. Not, not liked. But it made sense. The pride that Anders imagined looked too much like the drugged, high expression Fenrs had worn the night before. High and haughty, an imperiousness somehow managed even with Hawke's come frothed at the corner of his mouth. That was confusing.

'Can I examine you, or not?'

'You do not need to ask.'

'Slave or not, I'm not happy to assume you won't take my head off for sticking my fingers up your arse.'

Fenris' eyes widened, not quite hidden behind the hair. 'You know I will not.'

'So take it off.'

Anders had plenty of time to get used to the idea of Fenris' erection before Fenris reached his undergarments. That Fenris would be hard seemed without question. Anders expected it, and there it was, budding rosily.

He didn't need Fenris to take off the undergarments, either, but they were ugly, and— and Anders said nothing, so Fenris was naked. Short and wiry, broad shoulders, the disproportionate narrowness of his waist. Where the muscles linked into each other, the striation was sharp, though softened a little with fat by now. Better than Fenris had looked that first night, a bag of bones and bruises hiding in a tub.

Unlike other people Anders had seen with full body tattoos, the brands emphasised Fenris' nudity, did not mask it with the appearance of cover.

Breath already speeding, high and shallow. Now there was no resistance to his touch, as if the clothing coming off had been the last of his armour, Fenris lolling so easily into his hands, push-pull, as if they were one body. The perfect patient, when Anders could remember how stiff and snarling Fenris had been on other occasions, challenging every touch, demanding the healing while making Anders feel like such a cad for what contact was necessary. Anders hated him for that now. It had always been this easy.

Hated him, too, for the persistent erection, which put a lie to every sympathy Anders had felt for Fenris. It made a fool of Anders more than Fenris, for having felt sorry for him at all. Anders tilted the head back, checked the neck, thumbed the lids down, checked the colour of the inner membranes. He was standing too close, forcing Fenris to arch his back. The erection brushed Anders' coat. Opened the mouth, took his time exploring gums, the tongue, fingers deep into the wet. He tilted Fenris by the chin into the light, so he could see better, noting the throat raw as — raw, very raw. A lick of healing magic, hunting for any wrongness to resonate, indicating illness. Anders had long since learned to ignore the wrongness from the lyrium.

Under Fenris' arms, tufts of short and wiry hair endearing. The aggressive muscle over his belly, less endearing. Navel higher than a human's, so shallow as to be almost flush with the skin, nipples widely spaced, breast flat, sternum and connection of ribs and small interlacing muscles prominent. Fenris' heart beat strongly, with an insignificant irregularity.

Anders slowed his touch. The sound of his fingers on skin was like breathing. None of this should have meant anything to him, handled too many corpses, too many ill bodies for people to be anything but a homogenous collection of nipples and buttocks and limbs, everyone so similar when naked. Even more similar when dead. But for so long, there had been only Hawke, and Hawke and Fenris were built so very differently—

'You have no foreskin.'

'I'm...sorry?'

'I know it's not an elven thing. Was it cut deliberately?' Something else Danarius did? Anders felt his gut clench in sympathy. At this, and not at the lyrium? 'Did it hurt?'

An abortive gesture, Fenris almost meeting his eyes. 'A Seheron custom. I have no memory.'

'You're Seheron.'

'So I was told.'

'You seem so Tevinter. Even when you talked only about hatred and slavery and mastery and evil it was a superior hatred and slavery and evil because it was for Tevinter. I suppose I never thought about you being anything else.'

'Perhaps because you never thought much of me at all.'

Which piqued Anders, for a reason he did not want to examine. 'There's not so much of you to think about.'

Anders could not have said who looked down first.

Slender, not long. Nowhere near the size of Hawke's, but few men were. Girlish, despite the inherent masculinity of the part, fit to be sculpted and displayed on a stand in a lady's bedroom. The head was almost the same width as the rest of it, unarticulated. That was an elven thing, Anders remembered suddenly. Easy on entry, hard to withdraw. How long since he had last slept with an elf? Not since Kinloch.

Anders reached. Expecting — more than Fenris' acceptance, certainly. Testicles felt no different than expected through the hair, and likewise the sterility was not unexpected; lyrium poisoned, the fighter's lifestyle, too many kicks to the fork. Though the discovery did give Anders another pang of sympathy for Fenris' marred equipment. In Amaranthine, he had tracked his own declining fertility to satisfy Cousland's somewhat obsessive interest in the fact. Hardly a difference to begin with when the decline started, when it had happened the possibility of children was gone so fast Anders felt something almost like grief. He had been fixated on women obsessively through the process, a strange manic chapter when he looked back on his behaviour. Would Fenris have reacted the same way, if he had known the lyrium would kill his potential like this? More chaff than grain, but spread even chaff widely enough—

'Anders.' The barest, needy little cry.

'Sorry, I was thinking about something else.'

A pinched expression. Was Fenris insulted that Anders' thoughts wandered while fingering his balls? It was too rich.

Anders took him firmly in hand.

Amazed at the sudden saliva in his own mouth, the burst of want. Warm, an almost imperceptible thrum from the solid pulse within. So smooth. Anders tugged. Don't think of Fenris. Don't think of why, certainly not that merrily vengeful little twist that thought a dispassionate milking was exactly what Fenris deserved after how he has sucked Anders off this morning. Think only about this erection, this interestingly different penis, with its over-hot, wet little tip and the near invisible slit, these cool balls, the pleasant prickle of pubic hair against his knuckles. He found the circumcision scar without realising when Fenris — when the breath hiccuped. Faded with age, a ring of marginally darker skin circling the shaft, uneven. The whole penis throbbed sharply upwards with each firm pass.

The size stopped meaning anything, cock expanding to fill Anders' entire focus. Such a nice, tight curve to it. Fit his hand, perfectly. Because it was perfect.

The bead of liquid overflowed, over his fingers, a thread of cloud within spreading to spoil the clarity. Fenris' thighs were quivering with restraint. Anders uncurled his fingers, oddly reluctant. What would Fenris look like in orgasm? Certainly not haughty.

Fenris widened his stance before Anders could even ask, head down.

He wanted to force Fenris to talk, to say exactly what he felt, why he liked or wanted this. Afraid of what might come out. I am grateful for the attention. The slight tilt to Fenris' hips begged for attention, the parted thighs.

'Are you clean?'

Fenris opened his eyes. Because he had closed them in pleasure, the bastard. 'I have bathed per standing instruction.'

'Is your arse clean. Or I'm not going to stick my fingers inside. Maybe you should check for me first.'

He didn't need to do this. He wanted Fenris to turn and spit at him, to tell him to fuck off. If Fenris never stopped him, Anders felt dizzy at the thought of how far this could go. He desperately wanted to make Fenris beg for it, to take away the corrupted pretence of healer and patient, make this all about Fenris and Fenris' selfish arse. It would have made Anders feel better for certain. He couldn't even say if this had been in his head when he told Bodahn to fetch Fenris for him. Only a vague, formless motivation to hurt through exactly the use Fenris expected.

'I could check with magic if you prefer. Or I could use my fingers. Or we could forget about it all together. Your choice.' And if Fenris made his choice, then it was as good as begging —

'I would prefer no magic.' Fenris twisted to reach his hand back, expression blank.

Frantic, kicking through the rubble of his early destruction to find a chipped pottery flask, dark blue glaze. Oil. Olives, by the smell. From Tevinter, which Anders paused to appreciate the irony of, and he wanted to share the joke with Fenris before stopping himself sharply. He was delirious. What was he expecting, the elf to chuckle and add to the absurdity? Fenris propped one knee on the bench with his other foot on the floor, splayed himself forward, erection cupped in one palm to avoid damage against the edge. His eyes were closed again, lips slightly parted.

Say you want my fingers in you. But the body screamed it already.

Don't think about it. Long, steady strokes with two fingers, deep and scissoring, which Fenris took without a flinch, without tightening, the body opening under pressure with such welcoming ease Anders had to grit his teeth not to fuck him. The walls of the rectum so warm and smooth. He couldn't even remember the last time he touched Hawke like this. It was so lonely doing it like this. Just his fingers and that opening arse. Fenris hardly made a sound.

'Don't make me work for it, Fenris. You're lucky I can even stand to touch you. Come on.'

A minute or so, then Fenris tightened around him once, hard, and came so silently Anders doubted that single hard clench, until the lyrium-poison tang hit his nostrils, Fenris' breath ragged in the aftermath, if constrained. Anders wiped his fingers across a warm thigh, along the curve of a lyrium curl.

'Taste it.'

Fenris looked over his shoulder, groggy. Met Anders' eyes, as if he had forgotten his self-imposed submission.

'Taste it, then tell me what it tastes like.'

Fenris bent his head to his hand, did not raise his hand to his lips, the low posture spreading his arse further, shining with oil, the oily black hair, baring his balls.

'It tastes like me.'

Oh, Maker. Hated and wanted him. Hot and cold across his shoulders, the sweat slicking down his spine. Anders felt dirty. He would never be able to take on a person in need again, to heal them or help them, without thinking of Fenris. The shameful, resistant erection twisted in his own trousers. Fenris, naked and calmly eating come off his hand.

When he was done. 'May I dress, or do you have further need of me as I am?'

'No, put it on.' Anders saw how Fenris hesitated before he bent to collect his clothing. 'Are you in any pain?'

'From your...examination?' Oh, the snide, snide, sarcastic elf bastard. 'No.'

'Your throat was inflamed, so I took the worst off. Apart from the lyrium, which is still mainly contained, there's no real reason why you should sleep so long.'

'I am as I always am.'

'You're always unconscious three quarters of the day?'

'Unless Hawke needs me.'

'All these years, you've spent passed out unless Hawke needs you.'

A long pause, then Fenris said, 'When I still had work as a mercenary I attended that, and maintained connections with those other ex-Tevinters in the city, the dwarven merchants' guild, and a particular quartermaster, to track as best I could the movement of Danarius' assets in an attempt to predict his movements without lending note to that I was tracking him. I tended my armour, repaired it. Assisted Hawke. Hunted. Now I— have none of that. I sleep.'

Fenris had the melancholy. Anders nearly laughed. 'At least it's not a sloth demon.'

'There is no demon in me, mage.'

Absurd, to feel nostalgic at that particular word. Anders rubbed fingers still slick against his palm.

'I know, it's — I used to feel like that too. Sleep like that. In the Tower. Days of fevered activity, doing — making things, grand plans, a lot of pointless exercises. Planning things. After I'd sleep like the dead. They called it an adolescent illness, but you're no adolescent.'

Oh, and the bloody boredom, too. He'd almost forgotten. Staying awake for days in a row, because — an unaccountable fear of sleep. Not of demons, but of knowing that the next morning would give the same monotonous start as the last, as the next, and sometimes inducing hallucinations through a lack of sleep was preferable to that. Then crashing, sleeping like the dead. It's not a sloth demon, Karl, I swear.

Fenris sounded almost angry. 'Hawke avoids me, most days. If he finds me unnecessary, I wait until I am. Sleep is a reasonable use of my time.'

Arrogant. Anders tried to be reasonable. 'Hawke doesn't schedule his life to avoid you. He does the bloody Viscount's job, because Dumar mopes too much to do it and Seamus is still standing by his conversion to the Qun. You need to find your own fulfillment, not depend on Hawke for everything. Or did Danarius made you the centre of his world at all times?'

The lip twitched. 'What do you choose for fulfillment, when Hawke leaves you?'

That was more than sarcasm. An attack, sharp enough Anders felt struck.

He shared — he had tried to share with that, trying to understand. He put his fingers in that. What a joke. He didn't have to put up with this.

'None of your business. Don't let me see you again today. Do you understand?'

'Yes, Anders.'

Anders wouldn't let the bastard have the final satisfaction. Waited, until he was surely alone. Invisible. Then Anders went to add the last three unbroken flasks to the pile, only to find himself too fraught to get satisfaction out of the skittering smash. To the rubbish instead, where Anders also discarded the precious, expensive olive oil. No point keeping it.

He washed his hands with care, each finger individually and even under the nails.

* * *

Anders woke to the sound of Hawke using the chamberpot, and grumbled. 'Even Fenris can't sleep through that.'

Hawke returned to the bed to kiss him, still sour with sleep.

Anders evaded the smirk. 'Look at him. Pillow over his face. He's pretending to sleep just to ease your pride.'

'You're just jealous.'

'Don't you dare—'

'Because you had no sleep, while he slumbers like a babe. That's all I meant.' The lips pressed against his forehead, beard prickling. 'I looked for you in the Fade last night and you never came.'

A flicker of panic. 'I— Was he—'

'Abides by our contract,' cool and confident. Calming. Hawke fetched their breakfast trays to the bed, Anders' first. 'I strengthened the glyphs, love. There was a gathering, of other sorts.'

So pragmatic Hawke was, talking about the potential destruction of his lover in the blink of an eye. And wouldn't Fenris love waking up in bed with an abomination. A real one, not a spirit of Justice one. Anders looked at his plate blankly. 'I can't remember any nightmares.'

'That's because I know what I'm doing.'

'I trust you, Hawke.'

'I love you.' Hawke leaned across for a second kiss. This one Anders softened for, opening hungrily.

The way the mattress shifted was disorienting until Anders remembered Fenris, who fell out of bed, grunting, to claw his way to standing while passing through a range of animal postures between. He slouched to make use of the pot.

Hawke's lips made contact with the corner of Anders' mouth. Difficult to turn to him again, when Anders could see Hawke's eyes were fixed on Fenris' back. The dimples and crossed lyrium lines sat just above the curve of his buttocks, three stacked arrowheads pointing downwards. Here 'tis. Fenris' firm fundamental. Had Danarius done that deliberately?

Of course he had. Fantasies made flesh, only in Tevinter. Anders looked away, only to catch sight of a mirror inadvertantly angled to present a prime view of the steaming arc.

Inadvertantly? In Hawke's bedroom? He suddenly doubted it. Rubbed his eyes and looked away; he didn't want to know.

'Not him too. Did no one ever tell you selfish bastards how to find the quiet spot?'

'Hush.' Hawke was grinning.

'You're enjoying this! Where are your hands? Above the sheets, please.'

'Yes, father.'

'That wasn't an invitation to stroke yourself through the sheets.'

'My sheets, my stroking, my—'

'Slave?'

The hand stilled momentarily. Resumed, a steady, sleek pressure under the tray. Hawke started on his breakfast with the other hand.

'You can't eat and do that. Not while he's still pissing.'

'Andraste!' Hawke said, mocking. 'Who made all these rules?'

Fenris finished and returned to the bed to crawl over Anders' legs, blindly, lids swollen. Anders had discovered last night, somewhat disconcertingly, that Fenris often slept with his eyes open.

'No! There's no room on this side. Go around, I'm trying to eat.'

Fenris moved like a snake when he wanted to, liquid muscle, gliding along the space between where Anders' leg did not quite touch Hawke's. The pressure of his body was warm and sinuous through the covers; he tilted his head, lips parted. Waiting.

Anders' fingers tingled, a flesh memory. Fenris' tongue and Fenris' mouth and the heat inside him. At either end.

'No. You're capable of feeding yourself. Take the plate and go squat in the corner. Eat on all fours if you must.'

Hawke reached out and held Anders' hand, fingers worming their way to force the clenched fist to uncurl. 'Indulge him? For me.'

Hawke had fed Fenris at dinner last night as well, taking such pleasure in it Anders felt like the humiliated party. Bodahn collected the third untouched plate without a question about its cleanliness.

The anger and arousal tightened.

Anders knew Fenris enjoyed showing off. His abilities, his body, his skill. This was no different. He arched into every offering, grinding his hips into— against Hawke's leg. Too much parsnip for a single mouthful was also overcome with the impossible depth of Fenris' throat, a choking awkwardness Fenris did more than tolerate, writhing. Hawke looked spellshocked by the time the plate was clear, hand sweating in Anders' own.

Fenris made fools of them, a pair of mages incapable of self control. Perhaps they would cross some imaginary line and he would end them for their own good. Anders could imagine it, but — Hawke was stroking himself through the sheets again, and Anders felt numbed and dizzy, blood throbbing loud in his ears and filling his prick. He wiped the dripping chin with his thumb, lingered over the lyrium; let Fenris suck him noisily clean.

'Anders,' Hawke said hoarsely, as if in reproach.

'It is all right. I would not take away his pleasure, even a petty one.' Fenris removed the trays, folding the covers down briskly. He paused, a single deep breath flexing ribs stark against his skin.

As Fenris exposed him, Anders had a moment's wild thought of resisting, but Fenris was too efficient, too effective, having bared Anders' cock and settled between Anders' legs easily.

Hawke said, disbelieving, 'What are you doing?'

It wasn't angry, wasn't a shout, but it struck Fenris as hard as it struck Anders. Fenris pushed back to his knees immediately, the neck horizontal.

'Please, Hawke.'

His monotone made Anders angry. A retreat into expectation instead of— instead of whatever it was Fenris truly wanted, and Anders was certain desire existed somewhere in there, in those rare, secretive upwards glances, the pulse that sped without Fenris' forced shallow breathing to act as an aphrodisiac.

'No, there's no pleasing Hawke.' Hawke wouldn't let Anders pull out of his grasp, clinging tightly. 'Come on! What did you expect to happen, putting us in the same bed together? We'd sleep head to toe without you between us and nary an upstand between us?'

'I expected a little restraint.'

'With a sex slave in the bed? What's that translate to, cuffs and chains?'

Fenris spread his knees wider, face, chest and belly flush to the mattress between. His hips had to be hinged with butter. 'Please, Hawke. I misinterpreted. I thought you had given me instruction.'

But Hawke shook his head and just looked between them, an expression somewhere between amused disbelief and — He had no right to look hurt.

'Don't give me that look, Garrett Hawke. Yesterday, you distinctly said—'

Fenris interrupted. 'I made an assumption, because it made more sense than not doing it. Please, Hawke,' as if it was some kind of code, and Fenris reached for Hawke's hand, touched the knuckles and withdrew. 'I was mistaken. I should not have acted without you.'

His fawning offended Anders, even stiff and formal as it was. 'Yes, Hawke. You leave the harem alone too long, the concubines play with each other.'

Half laugh, half outburst. 'What in the void have you been reading?' To Fenris, 'I told you. I wanted us to wait until— until we could all. Until you were ready.'

A heated glance through the fall of hair, dipping immediately. 'I was ready the day I came here, Hawke, or I would not have come. I have waited to be of some purpose to you.' The elf sounded certain again, his actions increasingly sure. Fenris parted the bedjacket with no protest from Hawke, reached for the silken laces. 'I exist for this. Please, Hawke.'

'All right.'

Fenris used his hands first. Hawke threw back his head and returned to full hardness so fast Anders wondered if he had been cheated by only using Fenris' mouth. Oh, of course. The lyrium, across his palms. Fenris stopped to cup the upstanding penis, a touch of consternation. 'I do not think I can swallow you as I do Anders.'

'I didn't think you could.' Thickly. 'No one can. Never let anyone tell you a big prick is a blessing.'

'Name what you will of me, Hawke. I am eager to try.'

But Hawke turned to Anders, the fingers tightening again. His eyebrow quirked, mouth pulling to one side in a pained smile. 'Well, Anders?'

He resented being pulled into this. Resented his own excitement. 'You want my mouth next to his?'

'I want you to tell Fenris what I like. I told him for you. You tell him for me.'

Erect, Hawke's shaft was fully three fingers thick, longer than his hand. Fenris did not look as daunted as he had sounded before, cheeks churning to work up a mouthful before he licked the underside, his tongue dripping. He needed to use both hands to work the spit along. Anders hoped Hawke had shaken himself off after using the pot. The thought went through him like a wire going taut from his balls to his throat.

'I don't know what you like.'

'We've had four years together.' Hawke gasped. Oh, Fenris closing his mouth over the head, lips stretched. No hesitation. 'You can't even guess?'

Hawke had shared Anders' secrets. Sharing his bed seemed a good step to take – selfish, not right, but Anders had been so tired of being alone, and it had been good. It was still good. Hawke would be the lover he had never been able to keep. Kisses and embraces, shared food, shared angers; a forbidden tryst, exciting because of what it was, not because of what they did, because Anders had always been more than a little afraid of Hawke's dick. He had attempted the preliminaries before trepidation overwhelmed, shrivelling out of a fear he could barely articulate.

'You like that. The mouth over the head.'

'You're only saying that because he—' Then Hawke groaned, column of his throat exposed and flexing. Always startlingly pale, compared to the beard.

Fenris moved off, a moment only, long enough for Anders to see. The flick of his eyes upwards, to Anders. The tongue narrowed to a point—

'You like. You like his tongue on your slit. In it. Thrusting.'

'Nn— ah!' The throat strained.

'Gently,' Anders remembered Fenris' teeth, the overeager pace. 'As if teasing something wonderful out of hiding.'

Hawke's eyes were bright and dazed. 'Maker, what—' A long, low groan.

Anders could see the flick of Fenris' tongue against cheeks sucked hollow. A coil of jealousy. And how had Fenris known, anticipated, what did it even mean that Anders couldn't please Hawke without using someone else's mouth.

'Off and on again. Fast and wet and sloppy, lips over teeth and jaw wide as possible. Fenris can't get enough of you in his mouth at once to satisfy how hungry he is.'

The motion was erratic, the shape of Hawke's erection bulging one cheek, thickening the throat, the other cheek. Stopping short, with a discomforted grunt, when Hawke struck roof of mouth or a throat without time to open. Hawke looked down at Fenris with an expression bordering on wonder. He reached to stroke Fenris' hair with his free hand.

Anger, but then— then Fenris slowed to take Hawke's wrist, moved the hand out of his hair, returned the palm to Hawke's side.

'He doesn't like being caressed.' Anders lectured once, enough for Irving to never to trust him with impressionable youth again. He felt like that now, using the confidence of delivery to hide the gaps. 'Fenris is not a pet for stroking. Fenris is a dangerous beast. He feels weak when you try to soothe him. He feels strong, powerful when you treat him like nothing will ever break him. If you really want to touch him, clench your fist in his hair and fuck his throat. He wants that. He said he couldn't take it, but I bet he was lying. Pandering to your pride. He's had bigger.'

Hawke's hand was sweating in Anders', a death grip. He had the strangest urge to tell Hawke it would be all right.

Then Fenris relaxed, limp, his hands folded at the small of his back. Hawke knotted his grip through the hair. Long neck loose and serpentine, skull rolling easily as Hawke pulled Fenris off him. Onto him, slowly, the jaw stretched wide and tongue thrust out.

Hawke's eyes were wide, looking at Anders.

'Everything you never could do with me. Fenris won't flinch.'

It was brutal. Anders experienced a throbbing guilt, tandem with the arousal that came at seeing Fenris so used. He had never known Hawke for anything but a sensitive lover, even with his issues; had Anders had turned Hawke into this, resentment building every time he said no?

Hawke couldn't go deep enough before making Fenris convulse, the body sweating and clenching in an effort to hold in the stomach's contents. They should do this before Fenris ate - and even that thought made Anders flinch, an acknowledgement of once and again. With Hawke moving to stand, dragging Fenris along by the hair, the position was different, deeper, enough Fenris — shouted, Anders supposed, wet flooding from under the closed eyes, spit frothing around the lips. The throat visibly thickened, diminished, with each roll of Hawke's hips. He shook Fenris by that fragile grip, moved the head back and forth, his hips almost still.

Eventually, Hawke held Fenris tight against him, hands cupped behind the skull to press the face flush to his abdomen, his balls tight against Fenris' chin. An expression of sheer disbelief, then bliss, softened and stupid. Hawke's knees trembled. His buttocks clenching in orgasm, hard. Fenris' features crumpled in pain, hands rising to his distorted throat.

Fenris hacked up the come when Hawke released him, struggling to breath. Then he bent to lick it up again, coughing between stripes. Hawke moaned, tugged his prick, still thick and shining. A scatter of droplets from the lush tip, which Fenris moved for immediately.

'You're killing me.'

Anders felt, if he moved, the ravening beast in the room would see him, be on him. Hawke took an unsteady step backwards then was falling, knees weak, bare arse to the floor.

'Oh, Anders.' Faint.

But he couldn't bring himself to wear Hawke's attention right now. 'What's it taste like, Fenris?'

A grunt between swipes. 'Floor.'

Hawke laughed, delirious. He pulled at the closest part of Fenris, a wrist, folding him between his knees, arms around the stubborn shoulders. He tried to wipe Fenris' chin. 'No one has ever. Ever—'

'Hawke, I have to finish.' Pitchy and breaking.

'No, you don't.' Hawke pawed at Fenris' undergarments. 'Show me this mess you made of yourself. I felt it when you came, you opened right up. I could have fallen all the way to the middle of you.'

Fenris tried to worm free. And Hawke kept — holding him, Hawke kissed him, Fenris going immediately rigid.

Desperation. Fenris' eyes roved, pupils pinpoints. Scrunched closed. He was shaking fit to break, shying away from every touch.

None of the calm Anders had come to expect when using Fenris. But he had seen the look of drugged bliss when Hawke manhandled Fenris from the bed to his knees, again, when Fenris bent to lick the spill. The kiss did something that terrified Fenris.

The elf paled further, yellow; the whites of his eyes showed. All it would need was the lyrium flicker.

'Go to your room.'

'What? Anders—' Hawke looked irritated.

Anders tried to keep his voice level. 'You heard me, Fenris. Go. Now.'

The head swung on the abused neck, seeking. Panic easing into a familiar blankness. Fenris crawled blindly, as if unaware Hawke was there, still with arms around him.

Hawke pulled away. Looked at Anders, looked at Fenris, crawling. 'No, stand up. Please stand up, I can't see you like this.'

An awkward affair, Fenris shying away from the hands. He used the side of the chimney instead, breathed, clutched the waistband of his undergarments, then left without a glance to either of them.

When the door had closed. 'I'm assuming that wasn't a petty instruction.'

Anders tried not to see the huge broad chest, the huge soft penis still shining wet, the huge hands. Picked through the features he could have feared, found the ones he remembered, the gentleness, the quirky eyebrows he'd loved from the beginning, the eyes too heated for that striking shade of blue, as if ice could burn.

'Did you— do that with him yesterday morning?'

'No! Nothing like that. I barely even had a choice, he decided you'd ordered him, and practically fell face first into my lap. I just waited until it was over.'

'Yes, hating every minute, certainly.'

Anders ignored the bait. 'I never tried to kiss him after. What were you thinking?'

'That he was amazing.' Wistful.

'He can't stand affection. Why have you not noticed this? It throws him someplace he doesn't want to be.'

'That makes no sense.'

'An ex-slave fights for six years to be free, murdering his way across the continent, then not a year after his master is dead, walks in and offers himself to another master on a plate. And you say yes. I don't know what sense is any more.'

Hawke paced, snatching at his trousers, wrenching them on. 'It was looking like such a good day.'

'You— bastard.'

'I beg your pardon.'

'You like having him as a slave. Admit it. You're upset because his bad reaction disrupts your day?'

Then it was almost impossible to see the beloved features in the face Hawke turned to him. That cool, calculating face, the same one he'd used after discovering Anders' journals. The politician, not the person.

Such a mild tone. 'If I want to kiss him. Shouldn't he give me what I want?'

A flick of warning at the base of Anders' spine. Threat of danger, however uncertainly Hawke phrased the demand.

Anders summoned with as much disgust, 'I can't read minds. I don't know how Fenris is ranking acceptable slave behaviour. I said it already regardless, treat him like he can take anything, he feels strong for it, resisting even in obedience. Treat him softly, it feels like somewhere along the way he surrendered.'

Hawke sat on the edge of the bed. Wistful, again. 'He looks strong, when he—'

Anders didn't want to hear it. 'Or maybe affection only used to come in association with some use so degrading and painful neither of us can even imagine it.'

'Why does it sound like that thought satisfies you more than the other?'

'Because it does. It satisfies me so much I want to call him back here now and hug and kiss him until he chokes on the horror and dies.'

Hawke lay back, tucking his chin to his chest. The furrow eased after a while, a steady silence. Then he reached out and took Anders' hand.

'I liked it when we were holding hands. Touching him and touching you, together.'

Anders wanted to jerk away. Was weak enough to want to look at Hawke before he did it, then it was too late, the fingers lacing through his, insistent. Hawke's blue eyes bright.

'I'm happy the two of you reached a truce. I had hoped. I thought, Anders will ignore him, or abuse him. Especially after he said he feared being ignored. Instead you didn't. Thank you.'

'Don't thank me. It's not altruism motivating me.'

'No,' a trace uneasiness, then Hawke said, 'It is a compromise, though, and I appreciate that. I don't have so many loved ones left that I can just let them fall apart. Sometimes survival isn't comfortable.'

'Well I know that.'

The grip turned into a pull, until Anders ceded, letting himself be folded against the chest. That magnificent chest. The heartbeat was steady and strong against his ear, smooth skin wanting his lips all over it. Oh, the slide of his own skin, his breastbone over the masculine breast, down, his mouth finding the nipple, giving gentle teeth until it tightened. Hawke's hand skimmed over the hairs on Anders' back without touching his skin, tickling. Broadening circles. The motion was hypnotic and soothing, enough Anders drowsed, the tug of arousal at his groin a building pleasure at being touched by Hawke, uncomplicated lust.

'I forgot,' Hawke whispered. 'Breakfast. You should get used to it at this time if Fenris intends to attend every morning. Let me.'

His protests were muffled and ignored. Anders let himself be rolled, Hawke's mouth pressing against his chest, above his navel, the skin so sensitive it felt like sparks. Hawke licked his thigh, fingered the ticklish back of his knee until he twitched, teased until Anders felt his skin was on fire. When the taunting ended, Anders gasped to rediscover Hawke's mouth was cavernous compared to Fenris, all wet moving tongue.

There was an after Fenris in his life now. That Anders could even measure the contrasts shocked him powerfully, then he groaned, remembered he could touch this lover, fingers tangling through Hawke's hair, tugging, plucking at his ears, the fleshy lobes, kneading the nape, his magic fingers, to make Hawke groan and melt in return. He could tell Hawke how wonderful he was, how perfect his mouth felt. Remembering that he could cry out Hawke's name, oh, never Garrett, not unless he wanted Hawke to call him Father in return. Or Mother, depending on Hawke's mood.

Not three minutes before he unloaded, the knots in his belly unwinding as he reached orgasm, hips thrusting as Hawke pulled back and swallowed. The kisses afterwards, passing back and forth the taste of his come in Hawke's mouth. The big hand smoothed through his hair.

'Don't go today. I'm so lonely.' The words bled out of him. He couldn't help it, 'Fenris is a dog, I hate, I hate being left with him. He confuses me. I tried to talk to him yesterday and he bit me.'

'With his teeth?'

'No, it was a metaphor. With his words. Snap, like walking into a trap.'

'You know I have to go, love. I wish you could be with me. I miss you, every minute.' Hawke's mouth tugged to the side. 'What did he say that was so biting?'

'It's not important.' Anders turned on his side, buried his face in the pillow.

* * *

Convincing the templars took the rest of the morning, after which Anders mobilised his furry excuse and walked at Mantzou's much reduced pace to the Keep. A runner was sent, and forty extremely long minutes later Hawke met him.

Concerned. 'This is a surprise.'

Anders hoped the templars weren't listening. 'I thought we could lunch together. Talk about, you know. Things.'

'Mm.' Rueful. Then Hawke moved into position at his side, not touching, because that wouldn't have been politic in public. But close.

They woke Mantzou from her doze and strolled around Hightown like any other pair of dog lords rich enough to have made it. Hawke's presence took away most of the anxiety Anders felt when in public that even the templar guards/protectors didn't. Being almost lynched once had been enough for him. They bought baked pies for lunch, ate them in a small public garden and let Mantzou lick the plates, though she did so more out of courtesy at the offer than hunger. The shop's decidedly brave urchin scurrying in soon after that to collect the crockery, eyes darting from the Champion to the known apostate to the templars and the aging mabari. Hawke tipped her atrociously well, which Anders thought was deserved.

They laughed about it, light and bright. They finished off the second bottle of wine, discussed the book Anders was reading — well, trying to read — flirted until the conversation reached a heated pitch, because this, Anders was good at. Then another runner arrived, this one bearing a token from the Guard Captain.

Hawke's farewell kisses lingered long after he left. The scratch of beard, warm touches. He even smelled Orlesian these days, wine and good food and the oils in his hair. None of the blood and mud, Lowtown smoke and Darktown skank of their earlier years.

Anders didn't miss it.

The templars gave him twenty minutes then escorted him home. In the foyer, he took a deep breath and decided.

He wouldn't creep. This was his house as much as Hawke's. He lit a spell wisp through the darker parts of the corridor, winding downwards. Light and general cheer spilled from Bodahn's sprawling quarters, rowdy chanting and song, conversation bubbling; evidently the dwarf was entertaining friends. Anders remembered having friends once upon a time. Never in Kirkwall.

He knocked. No response. Knocked again.

'I won't come in, but I'm opening the door. It would be appreciated it if you didn't kill me.'

Still no response.

A bowl of lamp grease crudely wicked lit the room, flame on the verge of dying. A curtain shrouded the arrowslit of a window. Fenris lay on his side, bare back to the door. An armour stand, his sword, a small clothes press. Wet — or almost dry underwear, hanging on a second stand in the corner. Uncovered chamberpot, unused. The whole space reeked of lyrium-poison, leather and sword oil, the metallic sharpness biting at the teeth. A smell of something else which was Fenris, which Anders didn't want to admit he could even pick out now, cloying spice, concentrated enough in the small and sweaty room it almost hurt Anders' nose.

'Are you hurting?'

The breath came deeper. Fenris had one hand cupped over his face, his bare fingers visible where they pushed through his hair. They twitched.

The breath caught, as if Fenris wanted to speak.

In theory, Fenris had no right to privacy. Anders felt like a cad just looking around the room. His eyes went to the incongruities. A feather, a necklace chain, a shard of blue pottery. A limp flower, which Anders recognised as having been on the breakfast tray from yesterday morning's feeding. A scrap of paper, worn, bearing what looked like a picture of Andraste. A long silk cord, knotted at regular intervals, anonymously stained. A bar of soap, maker's mark softened by use.

Finally, 'How did you know?' Not gravel. That was steel on stone, raw as butchery.

'Know what? To send you away? You looked ready to faint after Hawke started coddling you.'

Fenris rolled, eyes a dull animal glitter. 'How did you know. That I feel strong. When.' He struggled, fingers clenching in his hair. 'How did you know, and Hawke did not?'

'Give it a rest. If you need healing, I'll be in the workshop.'

Fenris certainly took his time dressing while Anders paced, arriving eventually, in his nightclothes of all things, flushed and feverish with his hair lank from over half a day spent comatose. Anders went to place his hands on the throat.

The elf lifted his chin, breath rasping.

The lyrium added thickness and texture, a solid armour over the most delicate part. Skin so firm. The pulse thrumming strong and hard against the surface. Fenris made a small, high sound when Anders pressed his thumbs against the pulsepoints, webbing between thumb and forefinger pressed against the gullet.

He closed his fingers, and Fenris closed his eyes.

Anders could not make himself tighten the grip. Not that he meant any harm, simply to provoke. So smooth and alive the thought of crushing it made him want to cry out in horror. But he wanted to think of crushing it so he could recoil from the horror, and in the relieved aftermath know that this, at least, was a boundary. And it made him think of cock, as everything about Fenris was rapidly starting to do, the resilience, the light hairs on Fenris' nape where Anders' fingers laced together, the strength and vulnerability at once. Alive. A long, elegant neck for the tangle of personality it supported.

Healing laced through the irritated tissue, not quite devastating but certainly discomforting. As slow and softly as he could. Even so, it was more magic than he was allowed in a day, in a moment; strong enough Fenris' lyrium shimmered in reaction, a stunning quicksilver sheen. Then it was done, and Fenris swallowed again, with less stiffness if just as much noise, the knot of his throat catching as it did against Anders' grip.

'You can. Do it. You can do anything and heal me after.'

'It's too beautiful a neck to bear the memory of that. Too graceful. Too delicate. Certainly not strong enough to support more than my light, loving touch. A weak, lovely neck, which bends so easily. We should decorate it with a pretty pink bow.'

Fenris wheezed, waited.

Reluctant, Anders let his fingers slide, stopping at the unevenly sewn collar of the nightshirt. Fenris must have begged clothing from Bodahn, stitched it himself to adapt. He looked awful. He should be naked.

Mouth watering, Anders put his lips to the pulse. Pressed and stayed, feeling heady, feeling each throb.

Not a kiss. Oh, so not a kiss.

'Will he have me back.' Dully.

Anders pulled away slowly. 'Don't be daft. He expects you back. I was the one who sent you away. Hawke didn't need to see you having your little mania and think it was something he did, he has enough to handle.'

A flinch, guilt-struck. 'What punishment—'

'No. Because you want some kind of punishment. I say, if he wants to haul you out to a party full of Orlesian chevaliars and spend the night cuddling and kissing you and feeding you chocolate until you look pregnant, while those big strong men who you could humble in an instant all point at you and laugh? Then you simper and smile, because if you are a slave, then Hawke is your master, and it's about what he wants, not you.'

'I wish him to be happy.' Fenris looked miserable.

'How can you do that for someone else when you don't even know what happiness is? You can't even kiss him. Can you even kiss?'

Anders did not know who moved first.

But it must have been him, because Fenris wouldn't have leaned into him for this, surely? Harsh to begin with, and quick, the few steps between where they stood and the wall closing, until Fenris' back was against the stone with a grunt from the elf, the lips slack against his. Anders thrust with his tongue and Fenris opened for him, barely, scraping on teeth. He tasted like mint. Taken from the garden and chewed. Oh, and it would have burned going down after what Hawke had done to his throat: so Fenris did not like the taste of floor. Anders wanted to laugh.

The breath ghosting against his cheek was fast, increasingly shallow.

'No, stop that.' Anders moved his thumb along the pulse. His other hand finding Fenris' hip, sliding to the warm, firm waist. Pulling the lean body against his. So powerfully different to Hawke's body. 'None of this trying to run away inside your own head, making yourself faint, or high. Breath normally.'

Fenris focused on him with difficulty, pupils blown.

'Remember I despise you. Every gentle touch is must be mockery. Cling to that if you need something to make this make sense.'

The breath steadied, chin dipped in what might have been a nod, but Anders moved to kiss again, and Fenris' mouth opened to him properly this time, wide, ceding, the tongue touching his. The sound which came out of him was unexpected. The thirst, for this mouth which Anders should never have known, for the depths and cracks and teeth and crevasses, for the gap where a molar was missing, for the jagged line of the front and lowers.

He pushed his cheek against Fenris' cheek, the stubble catching, dragging. His eyes burned. When he went back to kiss Fenris again, Fenris said, softly, 'Stop.'

Fenris only lowered his chin only when it came clear Anders had stepped away and would not close with him again. He looked dazed.

It was so unlike Fenris, the old Fenris, it burst out of Anders unwillingly, 'Why are you doing this?'

They were interrupted by a banging on the estate's main door.

Down the corridor, Anders waved off Bodahn, who had poked his head out of the revel in his rooms in response. 'It was me again, Bodahn, never mind.'

'Are you sure, messere? I could offer some assistance to defuse the situat— Uh. Poor choice of words?'

'I can handle it, Bodahn.'

The templars were less than pleased that Anders answered alone. 'Where is Lord Hawke?'

'At the Keep, where do you think?'

There were two, one slightly shorter with the moustache, the other rawboned and young, different from the guards from this morning's walk. Both veterans despite their youth, Anders knew; they would have stood through the expulsion of the Qunari, through the templar coup itself.

Moustache wielded his pencil with aplomb. 'Two minutes ago there was an unauthorised use—'

'I was healing Fenris.'

The pencil paused. 'Serah Fenris the mercenary? Hawke's companion.'

'Yes. You should have him on your logbook for entry, some — weeks ago, now.'

'He hasn't left.' The templars swapped glances, a low mutter. 'Thought it was a mistake. One of the recruits forgetting to fill the outgoing log.'

Fenris stepped forward into the light from the opened door. Anders hadn't been aware he had followed.

'The mage healed me of a minor injury. What is your interrogation for? He is a healer. His actions to this end have never concerned templars before.'

Moustache turned his scrutiny to Fenris' nightshirt, disapproving. 'All actions by the once-apostate concern the templars, serah.' Sweaty, rumpled. And at this hour of the day. Anders could see the templar's cogs turning. 'Are you quite well?'

'The details are also none of your concern.'

'Leave it, they're just doing their job. It was your throat, wasn't it? An illness, lingering inflammation.'

A long, awkward pause. 'Yes,' Fenris said. 'That was it.'

The book snapped shut. 'We will check with Lord Hawke on his return.' The templars nodded at Fenris, not Anders. 'Serah. Apologies for disrupting your...afternoon.' The eyes flicked to Anders.

Anders let them pull the door closed, then barred it from the inside. Immediately unbarred it. Stupid thing to do in the first place, or how was Hawke supposed to get in?

'I will not shame Hawke,' Fenris said quietly. 'Not even through rumour. What will come of this?'

'Nothing. They're always here. Or didn't you notice the tin soldiers playing doormen when you decided to — take up Hawke's offer of assistance to find a legal place to live and let that squat go?'

Fenris looked at the floor.

Then, 'Hawke said you would stop, if I asked you. I did not believe him.'

It was too much. As if Anders was the beast, not— Not whoever should have been blamed for all this. Too much, with the taste of Fenris, minty, still swirling around Anders' tongue.

'Go sponge yourself off and come help me with the garden. If— if you want. If you've nothing better to do.'

'Yes, Anders.'

* * *

Anders was halfway through his bread and cheese when Hawke stepped through the door, smiling oddly, as if uncertain he would be welcomed.

'Hello. I didn't expect you home for lunch today, or I would have let Bodahn prepare something.' Anders waved the sandwich. 'The extent of my labours. I think he went out for supplies if you want to wait.'

Hawke shook his head, lips tight beneath the beard. A finger dragged across a recently scrubbed benchtop. 'I didn't know you started work down here again.'

'I haven't, exactly. It's something to do. Keeps Fenris busy.'

'He's...sleeping better?'

It had been three weeks. Fenris didn't help so much as create inexplicable messes and look vaguely smug at his incompetence at anything not involving sex or a sword. Anders refused to let him idle. He was even accustomed to the daily ritual of feeding and feeding, making Fenris work to earn his come, all while Fenris fleshed out, sleek, the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones easing.

But that was his ritual, his and Fenris'. Hawke and Fenris had their own, every moment of solitude they shared to be resented. In the bath chamber, mostly, or out on a walk through Hightown, where Anders couldn't see them. They would have to be strictly walks; there were not so many alleys in Hightown which could be used for indiscriminate fucking. Hawke wouldn't buy a bed at the Rose, not when he had his own mansion. Not even for Anders' sake.

Anders didn't know what imagining was worse: that Hawke would take Fenris elsewhere to fuck him in secret, or that he would do it in front of Anders.

The pleasure at Hawke's early arrival home faded into irritation. 'Sleeping less, you mean? He's fine, Hawke. You see him every night at dinner, why don't you ask?'

A grimace. The voice was small. 'Can I talk to you without talking about him for once?'

Anders slid off his benchtop, reached. Alarmed. 'Love?'

'No, I just —'

Without warning, Hawke folded him into a crushing embrace.

Anders ran his hands over the silk, feeling the bones, the muscles. Less of both, these days, flesh thickening. But Hawke's solidity was comforting. The sort of majestic belly only kings could wear, Anders thought, with pride and expert tailoring. He absorbed the excess comfort.

Fenris was all wire, when he would let himself be touched.

They stood together for a while, until Hawke drew back. His lashes were wet. 'Thanks.'

'What did you want to talk about?' Softly, softly. He stroked Hawke's cheek.

'I—' a headshake. 'Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.'

One of many topics, then, politics or the state of the world outside these walls, which were forbidden, as if the templars could control what people were allowed to think.

For the first time Anders resented the conditions of his imprisonment as a restriction on someone apart from himself.

Hawke joined him in cleaning for a while, distracted enough to do near as much harm as Fenris, eventually gravitating to the courtyard. The mabari Mantzou woke from her sunbath and joined him, more pink skin than even grey fur these days, rheumy eyes and faltering tread. Hawke stopped walking out of sympathy, Anders assumed, folding himself against a tree with Mantzou's broad skull settling on his thigh.

For no reason Anders could detect through the window, Hawke looked up, raised his palm in greeting. To Fenris, Anders saw, who was at the bedroom balcony and looking down, his own hand lowering to the balustrade.

They met at the foot of the great stair. Fenris was frowning, adjusting the ribbon at his throat. 'What has happened?'

'He won't tell me. You might have better luck.'

'What could I—'

'Maker! Just go to him. Isn't this a part of your purpose? Make him feel better.' No need to mask his bitterness with Fenris. 'I certainly can't.'

Fenris nodded and went quickly.

The break in the monotony evidently alarmed Fenris as well. Anders thought of the small caged birds, the pretty fish they were allowed to keep as apprentices, and how the animals panicked when the routine changed even slightly. Because monotony could carry you, Anders knew, a tide easily surrendered to, until you woke one morning and the worst of affairs had already happened, been and gone, and you with no especial horrors to break your sleep but more decades of the same.

Anders went to the bedroom, fidgeted with the toiletries, his brush, Hawke's brush. Fenris did not brush his own hair. Anders sat on the bed and avoided the dip in the mattress, the residual warmth Fenris left.

He shuddered without knowing why. The motion was too suggestive to his body, gut clenching immediately, his throat tight, eyes pricking, as if he wanted to cry. Anders put his face in the pillow instead and tried not to think.

It was Fenris who woke him, surprisingly gentle. The lamps were lit if dimmed, the sky dark.

'Hawke asks if you will join us for an early dinner. He wishes to retire early.'

Anders yawned. 'He hasn't invited another group of so called friends, has he?' That had been a disaster of a dinner attempt, Fenris off in hiding. The route the conversation took, Anders had found himself longing to join him.

'No.' A curious look. 'But they were your friends, once.'

'Where did you get that idea? They tolerated me, for Hawke's sake.'

In the dining hall, Hawke was by the mantle with a mostly empty glass of wine, turning to give him — them — a blinding smile before seating himself. Fenris took position at Hawke's side as usual, hands below the table and posture one of benign anticipation. Anders watched as the calm spread across Fenris' features, softening the sharpness.

How queer usual had become, Hawke feeding Fenris from his own plate.

Not tonight. Hawke toyed with his cutlery, forgot Fenris for a long period of time, pushed food about his plate, while Anders watched and tried to determine what he felt at the pained look on Fenris' face, to be so ignored. A trifle of gloat, but also something equally pained. Embarrassment. When Hawke did remember, it came with an apology and a fumbled attempt to resume what had become a graceful pattern.

Fenris touched Hawke's wrist, stopped it a hand's distance from his mouth.

'It is all right.'

'Fenris?'

Who stood, fingers bunched as his sides as if he had forgotten what to do with them. 'I will get a plate.'

'I'm so sorry.' Hawke tried to bolster, smiling again. It faded before he had even finished speaking. 'Can't have you wasting away.'

Fenris collected a bottle of red from the sideboard as well as a plate and a fork, topping Anders' goblet as he passed. He returned to Hawke's side and touched Hawke's wrist again, gently. Leaned to pour for Hawke, his bare forearm sliding against Hawke's bicep.

'It is all right,' Fenris said again, gently. With an awkward selfconsciousness, he pressed his lips to Hawke's temple before he sat.

The food lost taste. Anders pushed what remained into a small pile. Beef and beans and boiled apples. Where did they even get beef in Kirkwall with no grazing ground? He recalled suddenly that Fenris begrudged eating meat unless he had killed it himself— oh, but there. He served himself the mixed porridge Anders never touched. Anders couldn't recall if Hawke had ever paid note to Fenris' preferences in feeding him.

Hawke drained his glass then lost vitality like a vessel run dry, staring at his plate. Fenris ate very quickly, and very neatly, eyes focused on his food. A table of misery. At least in their habits they had reached a certain level of play, Hawke teasing Fenris, tempting him. Fenris had a surprising fondness for playing the fool in those situations, burnished with pride to have Hawke's attention focused on him.

'I could have stayed in bed if this was all you wanted me here for. An audience.'

Hawke looked up, startled.

Something seemed to change, eyes closing, opening, face gone expressionless.

'You've been enjoying the role to date.' Fenris, not precisely a biting tone, but sharper than Anders had come to expect. It frightened him when Fenris did this, reminded him of the personality within. The same personality who had let Anders tie a red ribbon around his throat, who retied the ribbon himself every morning, with an intensity and care that he did not devote to the rest of his dress.

'When there's been a performance to enjoy, I give you that. The faces you pull when Hawke feeds you fish, for example—'

Hawke interrupted. 'If you've enough time to chat, then you're both clearly sated. Perhaps we should all go to bed.'

'It's barely gone eight.'

'Some of us haven't been napping away the afternoon.' Hawke stood, seeming unable to meet Anders' gaze. 'Fenris, bring more wine.'

They drank for a while, as Hawke fed magic into the fire's flames until the room heated, cloying, Fenris sitting on the edge of the bed, hands cupped around his goblet. Anders went from window to Hawke, to the bed, hovering. Anticipating. Every line of Hawke's body looked tense.

When it came, it was not in words, Hawke simply rising and catching Anders as he flitted, another overwhelming embrace. Anders made a cave of space against Hawke's chest, his forehead against the other's heartbeat. The shuddering breath through his hair, Hawke untucking his shirt, finding the skin beneath with a touch that woke Anders, gasping and brisk. Good to be stroking Hawke's broad back, the solid arse to the nape of the neck, tugging the shaggy hair, an easy affection.

Hawke snapped his hips forward, erection against Anders' stomach. A fluttering unease.

'Oh, you want—'

Hawke looked feverish, eyes full of an untenable ache. The urgent fumbling at his breeches roused Anders to a similar pitch, as if the wine hadn't yet, Hawke kissing him deeply, all encompassing, a focus Anders had never felt from anyone but Hawke. Fenris was an idiot to push this away.

Fenris.

And what about him? Let him keep silent on the bed, watching, like a good little servant; Anders tugged at Hawke's hair, grinning into the throaty purr. Pushed himself firmly against the wide, hard belly, hooking his shirt from Hawke's hands and pulling it off in a breath, wrenching at Hawke's clothing next. There, at last, perfect — bared and sliding against warm, beautiful skin. Hawke's big hand closed around his dick, the other arm hooking Anders' knee and lifting without effort.

Spreading him. Hawke's penis moved between Anders' thighs, shaft against his balls. Hawke pulled him closer.

His dick was abandoned. Hand pressed against Anders' lips first, a finger, for wetting, then Hawke's lips, and the arousal and the fear warred inside him, an excitement Anders never knew which way would fall. It was always so good when Hawke's finger went into him, hard and probing, opening him— like that, yes, like that, crooking and curling. Stroking his cock from behind. No more than this.

But the second finger made him start to sweat, prick wilting, not from any pain but anticipation of the moment when it would hurt, anticipating the irrational fear— what would come, pressure and pain and always more—

His mind blanked. Not quite. He saw again Hawke pushing his cock into Fenris' throat, the way the flesh distorted around his size.

'It's all right,' Hawke kissed him again, returning to a single finger. 'Anders. Anders, look at me. I had an idea.' He was abashed.

A last kiss. Hawke stepped away and went to Fenris.

Disbelief. Could not understand. Confusion hammered Anders from the inside out, curled his balls, made his eyes sting. Hawke tugged Fenris to stand, in four words had Fenris undress but for the ribbon — my ribbon, Anders thought, my ribbon, meant to shame him, not to be worn like a sodding love favour!

To instruction, Fenris arranged himself on all fours at the edge of the bed, head hanging. The spill of hair exposing the long neck. Hawke pushed Fenris' knees wide apart, measured his erection against the angle of approach, propped Fenris' knees on a folded pillow each, then dug a palmful of semi-solid grease from the afternoon's lamp and pushed it into Fenris' exposed hole steadily, with both thumbs, an expression of endearing concentration on his face.

'Flatter.' An adjustment to the posture, the muscle in Fenris' arms and shoulders flexing. Hawke patted his lower back again and held out a hand to Anders. 'Here. Come sit on him.'

All his blood must have gone to his cock. Anders found his tongue. 'He's not furniture!'

The room was swimming. Then Hawke had Anders' hand, coaxed him across the vast distance to the bed. The loving fingers unravelled Anders' last clothing, touching his erection so, grease on the fingers, and he was harder than he wanted to admit, just from seeing Fenris spread.

'Can I fuck him,' Hawke murmured. 'Will you hate me?'

'No. Oh, Maker. No.' He was moaning.

'Do you want my prick in you, Fenris?'

'Yes, Hawke.'

'Do you want my prick in you, Anders?'

Yes. Sod it, yes. But Anders couldn't say it. He wanted it so strongly some days, but the pain always undid him, not even real pain, only memories of things he didn't want to remember, stretch and pain and stretch, those hated things that he had been told happened to him; only his flesh remembered. Of course he wanted it. Sometimes his arse felt so unbearably empty. Hawke was his, he should have been able to say yes.

'Are you punishing me. Because I can't. You want to humiliate me in front of him.' Then he was hissing, a stranger's voice. 'Just because this slut could take in a mabari—'

Anders cut off, watching the tremor ripple through Fenris' back, fingers and toes clenching. In his rage, some part of him felt distant, so very distant from this unfamiliar place where the elf spread himself with half a lamp's worth of used grease shoved up his arse, where Hawke stood and stroked the remainder over his erection.

'Don't like that idea, Fenris?' Jeering. Juvenile, desperate. Lusting hard.

'No.' Hollow and low, but no inflection. Fenris' safe, steady monotone, already approaching that place where he let go. Anders was beginning to envy him that freedom. 'I do not.'

'If Hawke wants you to?'

That tremor again, a whine which Anders couldn't judge as denial or desire. 'Then I would.'

'I don't want it,' Hawke said rapidly, 'Maker, do I look Orlesian? How did we even get to—' A headshake, Hawke, stern and gentle. Benign father, Anders thought. Competent. In control. Not to be disappointed. Hawke rubbed Anders' arms, coaxing him closer, while Anders felt the residual grease and cringed, and warmed, disgust and appalled fascination tightening his groin. 'Let me show you what I mean.'

Anders let himself be moved, much as Fenris had been moved and position. He cried out a little when Hawke seated him on that firm, muscled back. Facing Hawke, not Fenris. Facing Hawke, Anders could almost pretend it was a backless chair under him if not for Fenris' warmth against the spread of his buttocks. Hawke hooked Anders' knees then and lifted his legs, so all his weight was on Fenris. His cheeks spread, the innermost skin sharing sweat with Fenris.

Hawke's thick, impossible cock moved against Anders' own, balls rubbing, then Hawke spread him further, stepped closer, twisted his hips, angled his cock lower.

Hawke entered him—

No.

Anders clung to Hawke's shoulders and watched that cock disappear inside — inside. The body under him, sweating. Only the head pushed in, stuck and held against an opening which would not give, to disappear into the stretch with such a sudden swallow it made Hawke gasp.

There was a sound which wasn't a sound, choked deep inside the body beneath him.

Hawke breathed out heavily, resting his head against Anders' shoulder. One hand kept working loosely along Anders' erection — but it was a distraction, his blood thrumming its own rhythm, desperate and tight.

'Tight. A bit painful. Give me a moment.' A rueful smile; Hawke kissed him. 'I know it's been a while, love.'

'Want to see.' The words were so small.

'All right. Right. Lean forward.'

It would not have been possible to see on his own body, but Hawke kept a hold of his legs for balance and kept him spread, the strain feeling so good around his groin. Anders put one arm around Hawke's neck, pulling, until he sat forward enough to put his balls in contact with Fenris' back just above where his buttocks spread. That— that was good, too, coolness in contact with Fenris' heat and sweat. Did Fenris find that sensation just as good, or humiliating? Did he even know the difference any more? The thighs were trembling, shiny with sweat. A little ring of fine, dark hair curled around where Hawke penetrated.

'Still good,' Hawke asked stiffly.

'Yes.'

Groaned, choking. 'Too bloody tight!'

Fenris said nothing.

Then Hawke tried to withdraw, the orifice not wanting to cede to the flare of the glans, until the release as quick and violent as it had opened. Hawke pulled away completely, leaving the hole to show the darker, redder interior before closing. A skim of grease had come with Hawke too, white and thick, gathered at the centre of the pucker.

Anders put his fingers in, not thinking. Don't think, thinking would be bad. Furniture. A hole. Not—

Fenris opened around him as easily as he had the first time, easier, Anders stroking in as deeply as he could, feeling the difference the position made to the interior, which was as smooth and warm as he remembered, spoiled by the lump of melting grease. He scissored his fingers, fucked them in hard. Side to side, until the grease warmed and spread, rubbed around the ring. He could feel Fenris twitching under him as well as around his fingers. Short sharp breaths.

Hawke watched as well, his head against Anders' shoulder. 'I like your hands. I like your hands in him.'

'Try again?' Anders didn't want to move his fingers out of the way, had to, stroking along Hawke's cock as it approached. He guided it this time, the right angle difficult to find. Then the hole gave way sharply under the pressure, Hawke sliding deeper than before before he stopped, brow furrowed.

'No, I can't— Maker, it truly hurts.'

'Let me try again,' Anders said. 'I don't want you to hurt.'

He had Hawke hold all his weight this time, doubled up to bring both his hands to bear. Two fingers from the right hand, then a third from the left. The fourth as well, and Anders felt what Hawke meant, the crippling tightness around him, crushing his fingers together unless he forced them apart. Felt, as well, that Fenris wasn't trying to clench, the orifice fluttering to release at the strain. It simply was, a limit.

Anders pulled out, watching the pucker close, ruddy and shining.

'More grease. I want to try warming it first.'

Hawke laughed, a burst of hysteria. 'I can't reach. Not without dropping you.'

'Well, I can't reach—'

The muscles beneath him flexed, Anders grabbing on to Hawke. Both their eyes wide. Fenris stretched to reach the bedside, collecting the bowl, pushing it towards them, along the bed. Returning to pose, slow, steady movements. So strong. He was so strong. Anders lunged and claimed Hawke's mouth, groaning.

Eventually, Hawke lifted the pottery bowl from the sheets, and they warmed it together, such fine threads of magic twining. Anders loved casting with Hawke, missed the days when he could pour it all out, an intense torrent. The grease softened fast, the experience over quickly, hot to the touch and sweetly aromatic.

Fenris flinched violently when the thin trickle touched his hole. Too hot. Anders abruptly didn't care. Hawke kept pouring, Anders fingering, spreading Fenris, opening him to the slow and steady flow, until pairs of fingers from each hands were moving in and out easily.

Heat and persistence.

'All this,' Anders said hoarsely. 'I feel like I want it hard.'

Hawke's eyes were dark with lust. 'You remember what happened the last time you said you wanted it hard.'

'Yes. He loved it. You loved it.'

'I won't hold back.'

'Don't. Oh, love, don't.'

Hawke pushed inside, pushed and pushed and pushed. Anders moaned to watch the cock disappear, disbelief. Not possible, not into Fenris, whose narrow bony hips were pushing up beneath him, whose body pushed back into the thrust; Hawke stopped, and pulled back, pushed again, pulled back, until the excess grease that went inside was spilling outside again, gathering around his thrusts. Anus darkening, red and redder, bruised and angry looking. Anders forked his fingers around Hawke's width, rubbed the stretched skin, so much heat and tightness. He kept rubbing, feeling Fenris' shuddering in a way he doubted Hawke could, spreading the grease across the fluff of surrounding hair, the tight balls beneath, what he could reach of that slim and heavy cock.

His own erection did not seem to matter, something distant, to be dealt with later.

'Hawke. Put it in all the way.'

Then that prodigious length was fully sheathed, and Hawke was beatific, mouth slopping and biting as he tried to kiss, moaning. 'Anders. Anders.'

His hand fumbled for Anders' cock, which Anders almost protested — he wanted to watch — but then the rhythm sharply fell into place, Hawke's hips and his hand, the way Fenris was flexing back into the thrusts beneath Anders; fucking.

Hawke came without changing pace, the gathering grease around his cock thickening with his release, messy and dripping. Then he went still but for his hand on Anders' erection, until too much was just right, and he finally tipped.

Lust ebbed, immediate, and there was nothing divine or good about it; he was sitting on a person, staring at an abused arsehole as if nothing else existed. Watching Hawke slide free of Fenris hurt Anders, made him feel as if something was unravelling inside him, his own bowels moving. Trepidation. Surely nothing could go that deep without breaking something. The head last of all, the difficult lip of the pronounced glans, and a heavy flow of clean spunk and fluid after. The anus tightened to try to stop it, but Fenris could not close properly, swollen open.

Anders looked away, pained.

When Hawke stepped away, the balance ended, Anders sliding off Fenris and Fenris — gingerly, moving to lie on his side, cupped around himself.

Hawke reached for Fenris, Anders saw. A tender hand, caught halfway through the motion, closing into a fist. Saw the pain flick over Hawke's face, and the loss. A sigh silent, then Hawke turned from the bed and went to the jug and bowl.

Anders watched that beloved body bend to wash. He looked at Fenris, noted the ruddy patches on his back where Anders had sat on him, sweat chafing. The ribbon around the neck had gone dark and wet, sodden as the hair; rose to red and silver to lank grey.

He touched Fenris' shoulder. 'Show me your belly.'

Fenris shifted slowly but steadily to his back, eyes closed.

'You come from having us in your mouth, and don't come from that? What is wrong with you?'

A Tevinter shrug. Fenris opened his eyes, unfocused and benign, his lips flushed, swollen. Anders would have said he was smiling, if he hadn't seen what a true smile looked like from Fenris, the contemptuous cheeks becoming a momentary and startling riot of laugh lines and curves.

'This is not going to become a habit.' Anders bent, took the heavy cock between his lips.

A mistake. Warm and hot and overpoweringly cock. Panic flared immediately. But — but his jaw did not need to stretch to accommodate, his tongue was not forced to flatten. He moved his mouth around the erection, feeling it, judging it. He could smell the grease most of all, semen, sweat. Old habits, buried his nose easily in Fenris' abundant pubic hair and sucked as he drew back. The heavy flush developed rapidly to a full erection, where the curve made it difficult to take deeply. But Anders didn't want to go deep. Anders moved instead, not thinking, never thinking, that this was Fenris' penis in his mouth, the way the tiny slit was invisible to his searching tongue until he was suddenly in there and pushing, the hard flesh opening moist and a little dank, a flood of precome chasing his tongue on retreat. The way his lips slid so easily over the head and halfway down the length, sloppy, sliding off the end again if he moved too fast and unwary, flesh too firm to flop back against Fenris' belly. How smooth it was. How much the feel of its resilience in his mouth made him think of Fenris' elegant neck under his lips. The living pulse.

A flutter at his nape. No, he didn't want Fenris to touch his hair. Anders moved up and down as quickly as he could, neck and jaw aching, until he found a rhythm that rewarded him with more copious bitter fluid, stayed at that rhythm. Started to ache, and sob a little, trying to push deeper past the curve. Why wasn't Fenris' coming? Why was it taking so long? Between one suck and the next, the abdomen tensed like rock under his bracing palm and Anders panicked at the amount, pulse after pulse of fluid. He had to swallow it, set himself to— couldn't, his throat convulsing. The liquid flowed out of his mouth and back over Fenris.

Less than it had seemed. Barely enough to flow along the belly and fill the navel, milky and thick. Surely there had been cupfuls.

Anders wiped his mouth, shaking. Sweat turning to chill.

'You could have warned me.'

Fenris blinked at him with dazed eyes. His hands were moving aimlessly, plucking at sheets. Still in his high place. 'I did not know. I thought I would not—' Vaguely. His hand came to rest on the ribbon and he breathed deeply, calmed. 'It was unexpected.'

Anders looked for Hawke, wanting — he didn't know what. Comfort. It must have been over quicker than he thought, Hawke still standing naked by the commode, stunned, dripping washcloth in hand and soap in the other.

'Did you know. If Hawke had asked me, I would have told him to give you back to Danarius. It was so obvious you kept looking to Hawke for validation, even acting against your own thoughts and will to do what Hawke wanted. Sometimes that want aligned, terrifying slavers, killing them, but what would happen when Hawke finally asked you to do something so contrary to your own wants that you snapped, like — like killing your stupid Fog Warriors made you snap the first time? I would have told him you'd be happier in Tevinter, being the slave you so obviously wanted to be. Would I have been right?'

A long breath.

'Anders,' warningly. Hawke wrung the washcloth out, steaming.

'I can talk,' Fenris said, as if appeasing. As if Fenris was now a necessary buffer between them rather than the cause of all conflict. Anders wanted to wash his mouth out. 'I have no want for what I had in Tevinter. I prefer this, these,' struggling, 'moments of content to the years of happiness I had in Tevinter, when the happiness there came only from ignorance. It was more resignation.' A thread of anger. 'I knew nothing else.'

'Yes, I can see how Hawke is a step up from having an old man.'

'You mistake me. This...is nothing that I had in Tevinter. Danarius did not bed with slaves.' Tired. Bitter, torn. Fenris opened his eyes, huge and hurt. 'Do not pity me for his sake.'

'But—'

'Not now,' Hawke said. He smiled, soft and fond. At whom? He went for Fenris first with the warmed washcloth, starting with the spill on his belly, as brisk as he could make it.

Even Anders could see when Fenris started to soften into the touch. The kiss at the dining table. Now this. Hawke gentled him by inches. Anders refused to wonder how much his own actions were working on Fenris too, the moments when he stopped to watch Fenris at whatever inappropriate labour, to push him over, to kiss him, as gently as he wanted to wound.

The bottle of wine had not been finished after all. Anders poured another measure, ignoring the sounds behind him as Hawke drew back the blankets. So he was tucking Fenris in. It was a sham, a ploy of the big eyes, false vulnerability, just like the false pride Fenris showed in that ridiculous ribbon. The wine did not suit the lingering taste of semen in his mouth.

'Why is he— That's my side! Take him on your side, I don't want him touching me.'

'Late for that, love.' Hawke gave him such a strange look, then patted the pillow between the two of them. 'This is your pillow, though.'

'I don't want to lie between you. What am I supposed to do, give him my backside?'

Fenris kept his eyes closed. 'I want nothing to do with your back. Turn where you will.'

'Please just come to bed, love.' Hawke stroked the pillow again.

Tremulous.

In a rush, the strange, pained mood from dinner and before was back, the image of distressed fishes in a bowl, panicking for the break in ritual, the ruffs on the Circle's cats high and raised when the templars would martial at an unexpected time.

'What happened today, Hawke? To upset you. Were they talking about me again?'

Oh, that was not hysteria in his voice. He was beyond that, surely. Memories of being dragged to an actual gallows. Faceless, Makerless darkness in the cell before. He hadn't even done anything, a few notes in a book, a bit of thinking, collecting, drakestone and—

And if he hadn't pissed himself on seeing the noose, it was because no one had remembered to water him for the day, night and day he'd been locked in a templar cell. Alone. Abandoned, he had thought then.

'You know I can't tell you.'

'Please, Hawke—'

Anders stopped, his heart clenching tight.

'You should tell him,' Fenris said, tiredly.

'You shut your mouth! I'm talking to Hawke.'

Disdainful. 'I was agreeing with you, ma— Anders.'

Don't you dare say my name. He was shaking. Hawke beckoned him close, pulled him into the bed. That most comforting embrace. Disconcertingly, Fenris arched until his back was against Anders', Hawke's hand caught between them. But it was — just a back, an anonymous presence of strength, spine against spine.

'Stop asking,' Hawke whispered into his hair. 'No point knowing, love. I will never let them touch you.'

Please, Hawke.

Anders clung to the shoulders, eyes closed, feeling it more than seeing as Hawke's magic flicked around the room, smothering flames and lights.

Please, Hawke.

Fenris' words, Fenris' words falling out of his mouth.

* * *

Anders woke disoriented; the room was still dark, he was too hot, and Fenris was crying.

No, not crying. There was no sound. The body against his back shuddered and clenched, skin clammy, the source of half the heat. So much tension. On his other side, Hawke slept, breathing heavily, another radiant force. Anders felt stifled. Walls of lava and darkness, drowning in it, no way to push out or they would push back and he would be crushed. A vast, swelling dread, that if he moved, if he so much as twitched, the heat and darkness would crush him. The worst of the worst dreams from when he was still capable of dreaming. The Deep Roads was womb and grave, steaming and barren. Compressive.

The other part of him, the part which woke quicker than the rest, which sorted the sensations into real and contrived, was so very tired of this. Anders was so tired of himself. He pushed back against Fenris, put his forehead between Hawke's broad shoulders and sighed into the space he made.

Slept again, briefly.

When Fenris threw back the quilt and stood, Anders was sufficiently tired of himself he simply spread into the sweat-wet space, cringing a little, glad for that brief burst of cool air. Fenris pulled the quilt back over him — and it wasn't worth questioning, that Fenris was pausing in his discomfort to tuck him back in — and Anders let himself sink—

Fenris jarred his foot against the corner of the bed and swore.

Hawke sat abruptly upright and cried out like a child, 'Fenris?'

Every lamp lit at once, three dozen or so wisps. Anders would have used fire, but Hawke's magic had come to him late in life, never elemental or emotionally driven; glyphs, calculation, tactics, complexities. He would have been a good healer if his blood mage father had known a thing to teach about it.

Fenris hunched in the glow, wide-eyed. His countermand lyrium flare flickered and died.

Hawke swallowed loudly, rasping when he spoke again. 'Where are you going? Don't leave.'

The body curled tighter, hands uncertain as to where they should go, reaching for and never touching the trailing knots of drawstring. Fenris was abashed.

Hawke looked at the elf as if his worst horror had been made manifest. Anders wanted to pull a pillow over his face and groan, but the habit was too Fenris.

'Don't go,' Hawke begged.

Fenris' brow furrowed, the eyes scrunched tight. An expression of discomfort. 'I will come back.'

'No. Not after—' This ache in Hawke's voice, so unguarded. 'I never know if it's too much, Fenris. You never tell me. I can't have you sneaking away, not again. Once was enough. Don't leave me again.'

The expression on Fenris' face approach true pain. Lips tried to form the right words, Anders saw the plosive form and never come, mouthed it himself in a mockery Fenris did not see, please, Hawke, as Fenris wrestled with some internal boundary.

Anders tugged Hawke's elbow. 'You can't melt that much grease inside someone and expect no consequences. Let him slink to the privy. Unless you want him to disgrace himself here?'

Consternation on Hawke's face. And if Anders had expected to see relief or gratitude from Fenris, he caught instead true anger, before Fenris clenched his jaw and dropped his eyes.

Gently, Hawke said, 'Fenris, is that all you need?'

An explosion of cursing, the knuckles on the clenched fists white with force. When Fenris opened his eyes, focused on an indeterminate point, he went immediately passive.

Except not.

So Fenris was not so far submerged as he thought.

Hawke said, just as gently, 'The pot's right there.'

Something in Fenris' eyes which looked like a challenge, as his gaze flicked to Anders, inexplicably.

Igniting a fire. Anders' irritation morphed like kindling to blaze, boiling away his tiredness. 'No, Hawke. Maker's breath, you might want to hear every grunt, but you think I want to listen to that thing shitting itself in our room? Don't— don't do this to him! To me! Don't!'

'There's no shame in it, Anders. It's only us.'

Too surreal, the soothing tone. Anders battled revulsion, confusion.

'Hawke. Let. Him. Go.'

'I don't want to.' Fingers raked through hair. An appeal to an unlikely source. 'Fenris, you know what to say if you— if this is too much.'

The elf looked terrifying and pitiable. He could have ripped them apart as they slept, and instead he let them break him apart instead. Anders wondered if Hawke knew what he did when he gave Fenris that particular out. I want to go to my room. The words of a sulking child admitting defeat. Anders usually lost when he gambled, but a sure bet that Fenris would never say those particular words. Not if they put a knife to his throat and warned him of their intention to cut.

Now that shudder was cramp.

Hawke swallowed loudly. A moment when he could have softened, instead his face stilling, blank and expectant.

Desperate, Fenris took a step towards the necessary.

The anger morphed. Warped the world with it, the edges of meaning distorted, so much like the waking dreams he had. Anders moved without realising he was the one moving, air cool on his skin.

Naked.

No, wait. Not naked. Couldn't do this naked. Needed clothing, rumpled robe from yesterday on a valet, good enough. Sliding into the silk without an underrobe. He put his fists through the sleeves so fast the embroidery felt like sandpaper. Floorboards under his feet, then a rug, then floorboards, the pattern so stark. Hearing Hawke say something, his name. It had no meaning. It wasn't his name.

Then there was this desperate elf, looking at him. Always watching, even when he dropped his gaze. Watching with ears and listening with eyes. Anders said, 'Get out of my sight.'

With some relief Fenris left.

So easy to run away when you never belonged.

Anders kept going. Blessed darkness in the hall, down the stairs. When he reached the lobby, the cold metal of the external door shocked his palm like static. Fear. Mourning. Something. Too much emotion. He wanted to laugh and cry.

There were templars outside this door. His guard and jailors. Hawke's too, Anders supposed; he never considered that before. The rebel apostate's presence gave a conveniently politic excuse for the Knight Commander's constant presence.

And where was he going to run anyway, half naked into the night? Stupid.

Hawke caught up to him then, hand on the shoulder. Anders spun through the maelstrom of emotion. If there had been a demon willing to brave Hawke's protective glyphs they would have been clamouring for him now; ease the pain, take away the hurt, give you everything you want, give you things you never knew you needed, keep you safe, make you stronger than this.

But Anders was alone. He put his fist against the flesh constricting him and pushed. Heard more than felt his knuckles impact against his beloved's body, not hard, but augmented, an apostate's instinctive blow learned in lieu of the mental blast all other mages could depend upon, for those times when the magic had to be masked by a violence people could accept.

Distance curled between them. Tears on Hawke's cheeks, rain to match the gale. Anders reached, withdrew. He didn't know if he could touch Hawke again. If he had the right. On his knees, Hawke looked up at him and begged.

'Not you too. Please. You can't go. Don't leave me.'

The disassociation stretched and snapped. Anders rushed helplessly to where Hawke hunched. He felt sick, a knot tight under his ribs, pressing upwards with frightening tension. He held Hawke's sweating hand.

Hawke embraced him. Tight and desperate, so hard and sudden. The huge body heaved and subsided. Anders soothed the shoulders, and as he did so, the knot of tension eased too. He could speak again.

'What was that, Hawke. What can you possibly be getting out of making him— Maker!'

'It wasn't that!' An outburst. The fingers dug into him, the beard prickling his cheek, his neck. 'I don't know what I'm doing.'

'I don't know what you're doing either.'

A heave half laughter. 'You were the one who used a whole pot of grease.'

'The rest was your idea. If you weren't so huge—'

'Stop blaming me for what I can't help!' Hawke was half dressed too, Anders saw, wrenching his robe closed in defence.

A matched pair, melodramatic mages. Everything which made a templar itch.

'Should I blame you instead for when you do try to help? Why are you doing this to him?'

'Fenris looked at you like he wanted to kill you. When you said—'

'Yes,' Anders said. 'I noticed.'

'But he looked at me as though he expected it. The order. The humiliation. As if at last I'd finally begun to meet his expectations.' Hawke collected himself, sat back on his heels far enough that in the lantern light Anders could look at him properly. 'I was so angry at him for scaring me. I thought he was leaving, he was sneaking out, that after everything he was going to blame me, too. I wanted to make him crawl for that. I wanted to hurt him. If you hadn't—

'Did you want to hurt me too?'

Puzzled. 'No. I never wanted to hurt you.'

'But you have. You saved my life, destroyed everything I'd worked for, those years I sacrificed, and then you imprisoned me. You made me into little more than what Fenris wants to be. Gilded sodding cage.' Anders crumpled the emotion. What good had emotion ever done him. 'You hurt people all the time, whether you mean to or not. Everyone does.'

Hawke wore his politic face, calm and diplomatic. Don't argue with this Hawke, don't try to understand this Hawke, simply accept that he knows best. But Anders was accustomed to Fenris' assorted blank faces, to the subtle shifts of body and frame. The slide of Hawke's eyes looked like desperation. Instead of angry, Anders felt only the conflicting urge to comfort.

'If I had let you do as you planned, I would have gone mad with grief. You mean so much to me.'

'It doesn't matter. It's done now. I only brought it up because — you can't make everyone happy. If making Fenris happy means you have to become the kind of bastard who tells him when to shit and when to eat, then maybe you shouldn't even try making Fenris happy.'

Hawke laughed, but as if he were a little puzzled. 'You don't understand.'

'So tell me.'

But Hawke shook his head vigorously. A dog shying from a leap too large. He said instead, hopefully, 'He kissed me at dinner last night, did you see?'

The reminder stung. 'He kisses me a lot.' A lie. It was always Anders who initiated. If Fenris sometimes stood there, fingering his ribbon and giving Anders a particular kind of look—

'Does that mean he's starting to despise me as much as he despises you?'

The big fingers stroked rough across Anders' stubble. Anders leaned into the invitation, took that mouth gently. Dry lips and sour wine, and a tremble Hawke probably didn't want to admit was there. Easier to lean into the body and let Hawke take the comfort he wanted; let Hawke pretend he was the one who knew what was going on. Hawke's arms came up and cradled Anders close.

Easier, but not something which could last.

'I can't take much more of this,' Anders admitted. Cliche; Anders was annoyed with it, with himself. 'But I don't have a choice, do I.'

Hawke was back in control. 'Of course you do. We'll tell Fenris this can't go on. It should never have gone this far; I wanted to give him shelter, give him a chance to breathe, not to—'

Anders braced to combat the accusation — that it had been he who broke that barrier, Fenris' impossible throat clenching around his dick — but Hawke stroked his spine. Persisted, until he softened. Willingly.

'No more sex. No more playing master. But that means no more kissing. No more touching, or fondling, or investigations—'

A distant guilt flushed through him. Fenris had told Hawke? All of it? An anticipatory loss: never being able to explore that small mouth again? The stucco of scars and brands, the shock of nakedness. The parchment palms rasping dry against his skin, touches only ever accidental on Fenris' part, but every time Anders felt such a jolt of lust.

'Can we just go back to bed?'

Hawke stood, smiling, taking Anders' hand and leading him upstairs. As if Hawke had never crashed to his knees, begging them not to leave him. Anders had to let him lead.

* * *

They told Fenris the next morning, when he came to suck them off.

The bewilderment first, then the anger. The mouth drew itself into a tight line, a sheen of wet along the seam. Anders wondered if Fenris oiled his lips particularly for this, or if it was a simple lick, given in unconscious anticipation.

'You see why this can't go on.' Hawke was all smiling reason and affability. He held Fenris' limp hand, patting it as if the lyrium was meaningless.

Blunt. 'What did I do wrong?'

In the light of morning, Anders was unsure if he was still angry, or filled instead with pity. 'Nothing.'

'Should I have done more?' The brow furrowed, the hand retracted. Fenris appeared annoyed that Hawke let him go so easily. 'I have been waiting for your word, but you want me to anticipate better—' Sudden realisation, so sudden it looked comical. 'I should not have resisted you last night, when you did give me direct word. I apologise.'

Fenris backed off the bed, dropped his trous, then dropped to hands and knees. To Anders' horror, he crawled across the floor with clear intent.

'Stop!' A yelp, Hawke rolling out of the bed. Hauled Fenris physically to his feet again, away from the chamber pot. 'That isn't why.'

'But you wish it. To control this or indulge it in yourself. I will not balk a second time.' A flicker of disgust on the features, then Fenris swallowed. Bolstered. 'Do not send me away.'

'Will you listen? You did nothing wrong. No one is sending you away. I just, it's too much! For me!'

'Why punish me?'

'I thought you wanted punishment.'

Those eyes went to Anders as he spoke, dismissed him so obviously Anders felt offended, then returned to spear through Hawke with pleading. 'Do not ignore me, Hawke. Do not. I have told you why—' The chest heaved.

'No, love, no. Not ignoring you. Nothing will change, only the sex. I'll still love you.'

So it was love, now. Love which abused that throat. No shame here, Hawke. Only us. Anders did not want to hear if Fenris returned the words. Did not want to look, but couldn't not.

Fenris shuddered instead of whatever Anders had expected. Pulled away from Hawke's attempted comfort. Standing hunched. He looked at Anders again, Hawke, Anders.

Hurt. Frightened. Helpless. Surely it was contrived.

'It will be a new start,' Hawke soothed.

Even Anders was not convinced.

'I missed being fucked,' and Fenris looked at Anders, 'hard. I enjoyed it.'

The words were an arrow, shaft straight through his dick. The morning light was too benign for the raw longing forcing the words. The dusty shadows under Fenris' eyes. Anders rubbed his own stubble and tried to remember why they were doing this. His dick ached to be wrapped in fabric only, insisting it should have been in that wet and sullen mouth right now.

'And I loved it,' Hawke said, roughly. Fenris turned to him, eager, but Hawke held out a restraining hand. 'I loved it so much I forgot...everything else. That you have trusted me to tell. I love it so much that I— You've seen what I do. I can't trust...'

Those sodding eyes. Anders wanted to put them out.

'I trust you.' The lips were licked, parted like a girl's. Wistfully. 'Please, Hawke.' A half-step closer, every line of the body opening up. The ribcage lifting, a tilt of the hips. The nipples pebbled dark and sharp-looking. Wanting to be taken.

'I know you do. But I can't— I don't—' Hawke gathered himself. The firm, diplomatic face, every kind of shutter and shield. 'No.'

Fenris recoiled across the room in response. Faced out the window with unhappiness evident in every visible line.

Silence. The soft thump of Fenris' fist against the windowsill.

The distance was not enough to avoid the voice of despised reasonableness. 'You have to admit there is a problem. Not having sex will make it better between all three of us.'

'Why are you trying to convince him, Hawke? It doesn't matter what he thinks.'

Fenris turned. 'How long?'

'You should have measured before you tried to swallow it.' Anders could not help himself.

Hawke shot him a glare. 'It's not about the time, Fenris. It just has to be. Until things are different.'

'What must I do? To prove I am worthy.' Again the flick of eyes to Anders.

'If you ask me that, with those words, I know you're not ready.'

Silence, again.

Anders swore he could hear Fenris' heart beating to match the flicking skin stretched between ribs, the ripple through the throat of all those words, tested and swallowed unsaid.

Eventually, Fenris began to pace.

Like a storm in this small space. Unbridled frustration. Fists and elbows, so many angry angles. Unfair that his prick should hang unaffected by his own nakedness. All dangerous purpose. He looked like he was going to hit someone, and Anders flinched when the anticipated finger targeted him, then flushed at the obvious reaction, heat and chills chasing each other over his skin.

'This is because he has a problem with penetration.'

Fucking shit. Anders wanted to kill him. How easily Fenris could rile him. Fuck him. Show the elf exactly what kind of problem he had with penetration, with his fist this time. He could feel his knuckles creaking with restraint.

Fenris sneered. 'Because he is too weak to control his pathetic fear.'

Hawke got between them easily enough, with Anders hampered in intent by the quilts which flung upwards with him, the pillows, his own confused erection. Hawke held him back even as Fenris crouched, ready to defend. Anders bared his teeth, met with similar expression almost joyful from Fenris. Things were easier for both of them to understand this way, Hawke between them instead.

'Slut. Whore. Mabari fucker.' Anders bit Hawke's hand hard when he tried to stop the words. Kneed the obstructive body, shoving, Hawke swearing to defend his own groin. 'Old man's little bitch. Slave, begging for it. Couldn't keep your sloppy arsehole clenched shut long enough to get to the privy. I'll fuck you your fill.'

'Anders! We agreed about this!'

Now Fenris was all disdainful anger, bristling with it. 'I did not agree!'

'Your agreement is not necessary. Slave. Hawke gives you more explanation than he needs to.'

'He gives excuses. The only explanation is that he sends me away because of you.' The steady denial, a glare through the draping fringe. Again the accusing finger pointed. 'I have fought myself too long to cede to your influence again.'

'This can't be what you want,' Hawke said. 'Fenris, think about it. Treated as I treated you last night. Every morning—'

'You would know it if I did not want it.'

Hawke hesitated.

Anders' violent lust fled at that hesitation. Fear, instead. 'No, Hawke! This is not a discussion. Be done with him.'

'We'll be happier,' Hawke said. 'Fenris, please trust me on this one, too.'

'You are decided.'

'I am.'

'We are.' One last dig. The absence of resignation in Fenris' tone, his posture, kept Anders from more.

'I will leave. If I cannot get what I want here.'

A threat. Anders sickened. 'I will stay, Hawke. No matter what.' Not that he had much choice, but—

Hawke put his hand on Anders' shoulder. Squeezed. Fenris' eyes were on the touch. For whose comfort? Hawke's palm was sweat-wet, blazing hot.

'If you have to,' Hawke said, steadily. 'Or I could order you to stay and accept this. You would have a decision to make. Submit. Obey. Or leave. Of your own will, as you came here that first night.'

There was an undercurrent to the words that Anders could feel. Did not understand. All those private conversations, the trusting admissions. The context he did not know.

Fenris swallowed several times before he could speak. Even then, hoarse. As if afraid.

'You would do that to me?'

'Reluctantly,' Hawke said.

The nakedness was unfair, Anders thought. Even if Fenris had stripped himself by choice. The body had more expression than the face. Every twitching muscle, clearly, and slowly, showed the process of how Fenris' fought his own defiance away.

'I will await your word,' without inflection.

Fenris dropped his chin, gathered his clothes and left.

Eventually the pain was too much. Anders prised the clenched fingers from his shoulder. Turned and cupped Hawke's cheeks. There was a void that he could fill. Hawke needed him. Hawke said so.

'Love. It's all right.'

Hawke looked distant, but not dazed. Something of the wistfulness Anders had seen in Fenris' expression. 'I thought— but he didn't.' Then he sounded almost cheerful. 'He was close, though.'

Forget him, Anders wanted to say. Think of us instead. 'It will be better now. We agreed, remember? No more...pain.'

Hawke smiled. 'There was pain before he came here. I caused it. You told me so last night. Everything I do, I cause someone pain. I exist only to cause pain. To hurt people, or fail them. Both.'

'That's not what I meant.'

Anders tried to catch the mouth with his. It was a little desperate. His body was refusing to rouse. He could almost smell Fenris still in the room. Hawke twisted to let the kiss fall wetly on the edge of his beard, black silken hairs.

'No more kissing,' Hawke said gently. 'No more fondling, touching. No more playing master. We agreed, remember?'

Anders sat alone in the bed until sunset, then must have slept, unseeing, not dreaming; he woke to the shadow of Hawke rising to dress for the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Unfinished Dec 2013, but still wishfully imagining I will get to it, one day.


End file.
